Learn French: Je prends un taxi pour venir à la gare. - I am taking a taxi to come to the station.

Je prends un taxi pour venir à la gare.

I am taking a taxi to come to the station.

Breakdown of Je prends un taxi pour venir à la gare.

at / to / in (general locations) / about (what one thinks about / reacts to)

Questions & Answers about Je prends un taxi pour venir à la gare.

Why is venir not conjugated here, even though this lesson is about the present tense of venir?

Because it comes directly after the preposition pour (for / in order to). In French, when a verb follows a preposition like pour, it stays in its dictionary form (the infinitive).

Why do we need pour before venir? Can't we just say "un taxi venir"?

In English, saying "a taxi to come" implies "in order to come". French requires you to explicitly state this purpose by using pour (in order to) plus the infinitive verb. So, pour venir literally translates to "in order to come".

Why is it à la gare instead of just à gare or au gare?

Gare (train station) is a feminine noun, so it needs the feminine word for "the", which is la. The preposition à means "to" or "at". Together, à la means "to the". If the destination were a masculine place, like le supermarché, à and le would combine into au.

The translation says "I am taking", but doesn't je prends mean "I take"?

It means both! French doesn't have a separate "-ing" tense. The simple present tense je prends covers both "I take" (a general habit) and "I am taking" (happening right now in the moment).