Help me translate station wagon to French and Spanish!

February 23, 2015 5:59 PM

What do people in France, Spain, and Mexico call a (station) wagon in common usage in their native languages? Is "break" correct for France? I think I'm missing the subtleties when Googling here. (And "estate" is correct for the UK, right?) Thank you!
posted by jroybal to Writing & Language (11 answers total)

I don't speak a lick of French, but the Citroen DS wagon is called the Break. And you're correct with Estate in the UK, unless it's a 2-door station wagon, which might be consider a shooting brake, depending on the roofline.
posted by hwyengr at 6:34 PM on February 23, 2015

The Spanish and French Wikipedia articles are your friends. Assuming you trust Wikipedia. Finding your source term in the English wikipedia and looking for the alternate language version is a translator's trick.

Looks like "familiale" is used in Quebecois French, "vagoneta" or "guayín" in Mexico, "familiar" in Spain. And "break" in France French, like hwyengr said.
posted by adamrice at 6:53 PM on February 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

"estate" is correct for the UK

Or "shooting-brake" - Wikipedia has the etymology.
posted by Rash at 11:01 PM on February 23, 2015

My French friends say "monospace".
posted by TWinbrook8 at 11:33 PM on February 23, 2015

FWIW I'm British and would say the term "shooting-brake" is not very well known (I don't think I'd ever heard it before this thread). Estate is indeed the usual term.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 12:26 AM on February 24, 2015 [4 favorites]

Estate for the UK. I too had never heard of shooting-brake before two minutes ago.
posted by altolinguistic at 1:08 AM on February 24, 2015

Monospace is more of a van, really popular with families here.
For the station wagon type car, we say break (pronounced like in English).
posted by fraula at 2:42 AM on February 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

Almost native Mexican Spanish speaker here. "Vagoneta" is commonly used; I've never heard the term "guayín" before.
posted by correcaminos at 3:56 AM on February 24, 2015

My French friends say "monospace".

"Monovolumen" is also used in Spain. A van would be a camioneta or furgoneta. A monovolumen is more for transporting people and a camioneta is more for transporting stuff.
posted by sukeban at 4:25 AM on February 24, 2015

Spanish resident here. A stationwagon is a ranchera (a monovolumen is a van). This may vary from region to region; I'm reporting from Madrid.
posted by lollymccatburglar at 7:13 AM on February 24, 2015

I'd agree, a monospace in french is a people carrier (think Ford Galaxy or Renault Espace). A station wagon or UK "estate car" (or just "estate") is "un break". Articles are important in French so you'd have to write - The French word for a station wagon is "un break". It's pronounced "un Brrrek".
posted by guy72277 at 6:33 AM on February 25, 2015