Breakdown of Le départ du train est à huit heures.
Questions & Answers about Le départ du train est à huit heures.
In French, le départ du train literally means the departure of the train. The sentence is really:
- Le départ du train est à huit heures.
→ The train’s departure is at eight o’clock.
You normally wouldn’t say Le train est à huit heures, because a train is something, it doesn’t exist at a time; its departure (or journey, or arrival) is what can be at a specific time.
More natural alternatives are:
Le train part à huit heures.
→ The train leaves at eight o’clock.Le train arrive à huit heures. (if you mean arrival)
→ The train arrives at eight o’clock.
So the original sentence focuses on the event (the departure), not the train itself.
Yes.
- partir = to leave, to depart (verb)
- le départ = the departure (noun)
This is a normal pattern in French:
- arriver → l’arrivée (to arrive → the arrival)
- commencer → le commencement (to begin → the beginning)
- sortir → la sortie (to go out → the exit)
So Le départ du train is The departure of the train or The train’s departure.
du is a contraction of de + le:
- de + le train → du train
You must contract de + le to du in standard French.
Use:
- du = de + le (before masculine singular nouns)
- du train, du bus, du film
- de la (before feminine singular nouns)
- de la voiture, de la maison
- de l’ (before vowel or silent h)
- de l’avion, de l’hôtel
- des = de + les (before plural nouns)
- des trains, des enfants
You can’t say de le train; it is grammatically wrong.
You also can’t drop the article and say de train here, because you are talking about a specific train, not trains in general.
French normally puts possessor after the possessed, using de:
- le départ du train = literally the departure of the train
- la porte de la maison = the door of the house
- le livre de Marie = Marie’s book
You don’t switch the order like in English “the train’s departure” and you don’t move du train in front:
- ✅ Le départ du train…
- ❌ Du train le départ… (sounds very strange/poetic at best)
So the neutral, everyday order is always:
[thing owned] + de/du/de la/de l’/des + [owner]
You need est because you’re making a full sentence with a verb:
- Le départ du train est à huit heures.
Subject: Le départ du train
Verb: est (is)
Complement: à huit heures
If you say only Le départ du train à huit heures, it sounds like a noun phrase, not a complete sentence, a bit like saying “The train’s departure at eight o’clock” with no verb.
You can use that shorter form in a timetable, list, or heading:
- On a schedule: Départ du train à huit heures
(like a label or title, not a normal spoken sentence)
But for normal speech or writing, you need the verb:
- Le départ du train est à huit heures.
In French, à is the standard preposition used for clock times:
- à huit heures = at eight o’clock
- à midi = at noon
- à minuit = at midnight
- à trois heures et demie = at half past three
So with time expressions like le départ est…, le film commence…, le train arrive…, you almost always use à:
- Le film commence à neuf heures.
- Le cours est à dix heures.
Other prepositions like en, dans, or vers are used in different meanings (in, in X time, around), not to simply state the clock time of something.
French treats this literally as “at eight hours”, so the noun heure is plural after numbers larger than one:
- une heure = one o’clock → singular
- deux heures = two o’clock → plural
- huit heures = eight o’clock → plural
So:
- à une heure
- à deux heures
- à huit heures
This is exactly the same pattern as with other countable nouns:
- un livre, deux livres
- une heure, deux heures
French doesn’t have a separate word corresponding to “o’clock”. The idea of “o’clock” is included in heure(s) itself.
So:
- à huit heures = at eight (hours) → at eight o’clock
- Il est huit heures. = It is eight (hours). → It is eight o’clock.
You simply say the number + heure(s):
- Il est deux heures. → It’s two o’clock.
- Le bus part à six heures. → The bus leaves at six o’clock.
No extra word is added.
Both can translate as The train leaves at eight o’clock, but they have slightly different focuses:
Le départ du train est à huit heures.
- Focuses on the departure as an event.
- Slightly more formal/neutral, common in announcements, timetables.
Le train part à huit heures.
- Focuses on the action of the train leaving.
- Feels a bit more direct and everyday.
In many contexts they are interchangeable, but:
- On printed schedules, notices, or formal info: Le départ du train… is very common.
- In conversation, people often say: Le train part à huit heures.
Using the same structure, you put ne … pas around the verb est:
- Le départ du train n’est pas à huit heures.
→ The train’s departure is not at eight o’clock.
If you use the version with the verb partir, you get:
- Le train ne part pas à huit heures.
→ The train doesn’t leave at eight o’clock.
In both cases:
- ne goes before the verb
- pas goes after the verb
(In spoken informal French, people often drop ne:
Le train part pas à huit heures, but that’s colloquial.)
Roughly, in IPA:
/lə de.paʁ dy tʁɛ̃ ɛt‿a ɥit œʁ/
Key points:
- Le → /lə/ (unstressed, sounds like “luh”)
- départ → /de.paʁ/ (final t is silent)
- du → /dy/ (like “dyu”)
- train → /tʁɛ̃/ (nasal vowel, no clear n sound at the end)
- est à → /ɛt‿a/ with a liaison: the normally silent t in est is pronounced and links to à, sounding like “éta”.
- huit → /ɥit/ (a bit like “wheet”; there is a t sound)
- heures → /œʁ/ (the h is silent, s is silent)
Important liaisons:
- est à → [ɛt‿a] (you should make this liaison)
- Optionally: huit heures → [ɥi.t‿œʁ] (many speakers make this liaison too)
French usually uses the 24‑hour clock, especially in writing and in formal contexts:
- huit heures orally can be 8 a.m. or 8 p.m.
- In writing, you’d see 8 h or 20 h (often without 00 in everyday writing).
To make it clear in speech, you can add:
- à huit heures du matin = at 8 in the morning (8 a.m.)
- à huit heures du soir = at 8 in the evening (8 p.m.)
So you might say:
- Le départ du train est à huit heures du matin.
- Le départ du train est à huit heures du soir.
On timetables, you’ll typically see 08 h 00 or 20 h 00, which removes the ambiguity.