Transport in French, or transportation if that is the spelling you reach for, is le transport either way. The basics, voiture, train, avion, bus, sit in our A1 set. What the A2 set adds is the vocabulary around the trip itself: conducteur (driver), passager (passenger), circulation (traffic), guichet (ticket office), quai (platform), and stationnement (parking), plus vehicles the beginner list skips: motorcycle, truck, boat, ship, helicopter. Vocabcord's A2 French corpus groups all 19 of these under one theme, each with audio. Here is the full list, plus how to say which mode you took, and the two words that split by formality rather than size.
The transport words, with audio
These are the 19 transport-theme phrases from Vocabcord's A2 French travel pack, which pairs them with 32 places words in the same pack, out of 1,250 phrases across the whole A2 French level. Tap the play button on any row to hear it.
| French | English | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| voyage | journey | The journey took five hours. |
| vol | flight | Our flight leaves at noon. |
| passager | passenger | The passengers waited at the gate. |
| conducteur | driver | The bus driver was very polite. |
| circulation | traffic | There is heavy traffic this morning. |
| guichet | ticket office | Buy your tickets at the ticket office. |
| quai | platform | The train leaves from platform two. |
| métro | subway | We took the subway downtown. |
| métro | underground | The underground is fast and cheap. |
| moto | motorcycle | He rides a motorcycle to work. |
| camion | truck | A big truck blocked the road. |
| bateau | boat | We crossed the lake by boat. |
| navire | ship | The ship sailed across the ocean. |
| hélicoptère | helicopter | A helicopter flew over the city. |
| moteur | engine | The car engine is very quiet. |
| roue | wheel | The front wheel needs air. |
| station-service | gas station | We stopped at the gas station. |
| stationnement | parking | There is free parking here. |
| ceinture de sécurité | seat belt | Please fasten your seat belt. |
The trip itself: driver, passenger, and the words around it
A vehicle alone does not get you anywhere; several words in this set describe the trip rather than the machine. Le conducteur is the driver and le passager the passenger. La circulation is traffic, le guichet the ticket office, and le quai the platform you wait on. Le stationnement covers parking generally, and la ceinture de sécurité is the seat belt you fasten before any of the rest matters.
En voiture, en train, en avion: how do you say the mode?
French marks the way you travel with one small word: en. Put it in front of the vehicle and the pattern holds across the corpus: C'est un long voyage en train (it is a long journey by train), Je fais la navette en train pour aller au travail (I commute to work by train), and Il m'a proposé de me déposer en voiture (he offered to drop me off by car, literally he offered me a ride). Comparing two modes just repeats the word for each one: On a pris le bus au lieu du train (we took the bus instead of the train).
Walking does not fit the en pattern, but unlike some of the site's other language pairs, French keeps a clean phrase for it anyway: à pied. The corpus shows it twice, in two different tenses of the same habit: Habituellement, j'y vais à pied (I usually walk there) and Allons-y à pied plutôt qu'en voiture (let's walk there instead of driving). No detour through en is needed; à pied stands on its own.
'Prendre le train', 'prendre l'avion': the other way to say it
French has a second pattern alongside en plus vehicle: prendre (to take) followed by the vehicle's own article. Nous avons pris le métro pour aller au centre-ville is we took the subway downtown, Je suis nerveux à l'idée de prendre l'avion is I am nervous about flying, literally about taking the plane, and On a pris le bus au lieu du train keeps the same construction for both halves of the comparison, bus and train alike. Watch the article shrink: le stays le before a consonant (le train, le bus, le métro), but it contracts to l' before a vowel sound (l'avion), and de le in a phrase like au lieu de le train would be wrong; French fuses it into du, giving the au lieu du train the corpus actually uses. En plus vehicle describes how you travel in general; prendre plus the vehicle describes the specific act of catching it.
Métro: is it the subway or the underground?
French keeps one word for the whole system: le métro. English splits it by country, and the corpus carries both halves of that split on the very same word: Nous avons pris le métro pour aller au centre-ville uses the American subway sense, while Le métro est rapide et pas cher (the underground is fast and cheap) reads naturally as the British term. One French word, two correct English answers, depending on which side of the Atlantic is asking.
Bateau or navire: which word for boat?
French splits boat by register rather than by size. Le bateau is the everyday word, the one you reach for crossing a lake: Nous avons traversé le lac en bateau, we crossed the lake by boat. Le navire is the more formal word, used for a large ocean-going vessel and in official or technical contexts: Le navire a traversé l'océan, the ship sailed across the ocean. That split runs on formality rather than on the size of the craft, which decides the boat word in some other languages instead.
Gas station or petrol station? Same French word.
Wherever French is spoken, a fuel stop is la station-service, regardless of what English calls it. Americans say gas station, the British say petrol station; French skips the dialect split with one compound noun built from station and service. Nous nous sommes arrêtés à la station-service means we stopped at the gas station, or the petrol station, depending on which side of the ocean is reading.
Keep the words moving
A real trip pulls on several of these nineteen words at once: the driver, the platform, the traffic, the seat belt you buckle before you go. Vocabcord skips the study schedule and uses the one already built into your day: plug in your phone to charge, and one phrase plays out loud, pulled from your level and timed to land right before you would forget it. Get Vocabcord on the App Store and start with the words on this page.
Common questions
How do you say transport in French?
Le transport is the general word. To name a specific mode, French reaches for the vehicle itself: voiture (car), train, bus, and avion (plane) from the A1 set, plus moto (motorcycle), camion (truck), navire (ship) and hélicoptère (helicopter) from this page.
How do you say transportation in French?
The same word, le transport. Transport and transportation translate identically in French. The two spellings are only an English dialect split, British transport against American transportation, and French never makes that split.
What are the types of transport in French?
Voiture (car), bus, train, and avion (plane) cover the everyday modes. This page adds moto (motorcycle), camion (truck), bateau (boat), navire (ship), and hélicoptère (helicopter), each with audio in the table above.
How do you say driver and passenger in French?
Conducteur is driver and passager is passenger, both shown with audio in the table above.
Is it a gas station or a petrol station in French?
Both translate to the same word. La station-service covers gas station in American English and petrol station in British English alike, one compound noun with no dialect split.
What is the difference between bateau and navire in French?
Bateau is the everyday word for boat, the one used for crossing a lake. Navire is the more formal word, reserved for a large ocean-going ship or a technical and official context. That split runs on formality rather than on the size of the craft.
How do you say 'by car' or 'by train' in French?
Put en in front of the vehicle: en voiture (by car), en train (by train), en bus (by bus). French also has a second construction, prendre plus the vehicle's own article, as in prendre le train or prendre l'avion, for the specific act of catching that ride.
How do you say 'on foot' in French?
À pied, and it stands alone without en in front of it: Habituellement, j'y vais à pied means I usually go there on foot, or I usually walk there.
Is the French word for subway the same as underground?
Yes. Le métro covers both; subway is the American term and underground the British term for the same system, and French does not distinguish between them.
