Today’s Spanish word of the day is “tren”. It’s a masculine noun meaning “train”.
Both the English and Spanish word for train come from the Old French word “trainer”, meaning “to pull or drag”.
Example sentences
El tren llega a las siete de la mañana.
The train arrives at seven in the morning.
¿A qué hora sale el próximo tren?
What time does the next train leave?
He perdido mi boleto de tren.
I’ve lost my train ticket.
El tren pasa por las montañas.
The train passes through the mountains.
La principal compañía de trenes en España se llama Renfe (Red Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Españoles).
The main train company in Spain is called Renfe (National Network of Spanish Railways).
Why isn’t train travel popular in Latin America like in Europe?
In Europe, traveling by train is very common, and most cities are well connected by train.
In Latin America, passenger train travel is rare, even though many railroads were constructed across the continent in the 1800s and early 1900s.
It’s more common to travel by coach or plane if you’re traveling long distances.
According to this article (in Spanish) from BBC Mundo, Latin America’s railways suffered from a lack of investment from the 1950s onwards.
Latin America is bigger than Europe, and has a lot of difficult terrain, making railways more expensive to maintain.
Corruption has also made investing in large infrastructure projects difficult, according to the BBC article.
However, some cities in Latin America have popular metros, including Mexico City, Santiago de Chile and Medellín, Colombia.
