Different Phrases yet both mean the same thing in English

Not sure where to post this.  Would be nice if there were Forums for questions on  individual lessons.  But here is the question:

In Lesson 2.1   you see the phrase. “per andare alla stazione dei treni?” and the English translation is shown to be,  “How do you get to the train station?”

But if you go to Google translator English to Italian and ask it to translate “How do you get to the train station?”  in Italian,   the translation is, “ Come si arriva alla stazione dei treni?”

So how do you have 2 entirely different Italian phrases meaning exactly the same thing in English word for word?   And, which of these 2 phrases would be the most common one to use if you were in Italy and why??

Thank you :)

Hi Chas301, 

Thanks for your question!

Sometimes there are cases where there can be different ways to say the same thing. 

In this case, the English meaning is the same (as you correctly specified), however there are some slight differences: 

“per andare alla stazione dei treni?” – literally: to go to the train station?

“ Come si arriva alla stazione dei treni?” – literally: How does one get to the train station? 

The first sentence implies that you want to know “how” one gets to the train station, without saying it explicitly. The second sentence (from Google Translate) is more explicit. 

Hope this helps : )