Wikipedia

Bouvierjr

Joined 3 May 2008

About me

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I live in Noyarey, close to Grenoble in the French Alps. My contributions to Wikipedia include Biviers and some pictures of Belledonne and Chartreuse. While I have a user page in my native language, I only contribute to the English version of Wikipedia.

Why no contribution in my native language

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The main reason I contribute in English is because of its universal appeal. English is the current lingua franca of the world. Furthermore, the English version of Wikipedia is better protected against opinions and of a much higher quality than its French equivalent.

I also love the English language and think it is clearly superior to French, being terser, more powerful, and much more precise. With respect to my first claim, simply compare any translation of a non trivial English text, say over 200 words, with its French equivalent, and count words or letters.

While English is more concise, it is also more powerful, with its ability to combine verbs with prepositions to create subtle variations that require a new verb in other languages. For instance:

  1. He sat on the bed,
  2. He sat down on the bed,
  3. He sat up on the bed, and
  4. He sat up onto the bed, all translate in French as "Il s'assit sur le lit", unless you use much more complex forms.

French has no simple way to convey such differences in meaning. To translate the second sentence, you would have to write "D'abord debout, il s'assit sur le lit". For the fourth sentence, this would be: "Il se hissa sur le lit pour s'y asseoir".

As for English being more precise, consider the French "Claude mis la main dans sa poche"; it has at least 6 very different English equivalents:

  1. Claude put her hand in her pocket → we can guess that Claude is female and she's putting her own hand in her own pocket (if we want to be precise we can indeed use the word own, the French has a similar word — propre — but it would not give the slightest indication about Claude's gender).
  2. Claude put her hand in his pocket → we can guess that Claude is female and she's putting her hand in the pocket of a man, e.g. she's a pickpocket or she's close to some boyfriend. Again if we want to be 100% sure, we can contrast 'Claude put her own hand in his pocket' as opposed to 'Claude put her hand in his own pocket'. Adding propre in French to la main or to sa poche would convey no additional information.
  3. Claude put his hand in his pocket → male equivalent of the first translation
  4. Claude put his hand in her pocket → we guess Claude is male and putting his hand in the pocket of a woman.
  5. Claude put the hand in her pocket → we guess Claude got hold of some hand (e.g. that of a corpse) and she is female.
  6. Claude put the hand in his pocket → Claude is a man and he got hold of some other hand that he puts in his own pocket.

Despite having a gender for all nouns, French is incapable of hinting at the gender of a person in this most simple sentence.

To give another example, we can translate the French sentence "Elle est venue ce matin" as:

  1. She came this morning'
  2. She has come this morning'

Both versions are valid, but again, we get much more insight from the English. In the first case, we can determine that the morning is over when the speaker utters the sentence, and that the person who came most probably left already. While in the second case, we know it is still morning when we speak, and we also know she is still there.

However, English presents some issues for native French speakers.

OpShACOM

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OpShACOMis a clue to remember the order of adjectives. It stands for: Opinion, Shape, Age, Color, Origin, and Material. While the clue is not absolute, it generally helps putting adjectives in the right order. A more general rule includes other types of adjectives.

 

For instance using the following adjectives for a bag,

Opinion
beautiful
Shape
large
Age
vintage
Color
brown
Origin
Italian
Material
leather

will yield a beautiful large vintage brown Italian leather bag. Try putting the adjectives in a different order:

  • a leather beautiful bag isn't beautiful,
  • a vintage large bag isn't either,
  • an Italian brown bag means there is a color called Italian brown,
  • an old beautiful bag isn't as good as a beautiful old bag, the former might have been beautiful before becoming old…

The opshacom mnemonic is actually incomplete. A better list is:

Quantity or number
many
Quality or opinion
beautiful
Shape or size
large rectangular
Age
vintage
Color
brown
Origin
Italian
Material
leather
Purpose or qualifier
computer

applied to bags yield many beautiful large rectangular vintage brown Italian leather computer bags. Granted, there are way too many adjectives here.


Remember also that adjectives are always invariable, and so are nouns when used in an adjectival sense: you can have two brown leather bags, and be six-foot tall and standing on a 4000 meter high mountain, and neither leather, nor foot, nor meter will need an s.

Plurals

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Remember that where the French would use plurals in all words of a phrase, the English typically use the singular form except for the most significant word.

  • a five-foot tall person (not five-feet tall)
  • many five-foot tall persons (only person is plural — people is another possibility, but the rest of the phrase can be considered an adjective, hence no "s")
  • a link reset procedure (not a links reset procedure)
  • different link reset procedures (only procedure is plural)

Also remember that many English words are either uncountable or infrequently used in a plural form.

Mass (or collective) nouns are nouns that have a collective meaning and require a singular verb. They would typically translate into a plural in French. Collective nouns have a singular form but require a plural verb.

Conversely, some plurals act as a singular noun, e.g. means is both singular and plural and means something entirely different from mean ;-)

Mass and collective nouns - sort on 2nd column to list French alphabetically
English French wrong right
Advice conseils advices advices : consider his advice
Data données datas datas : we collect data from the switches
Feedback retours feedbacks feedbacks : employees are asked for their feedback
Functionality fonctionalités functionalities functionalities : see the functionality list below
Hardware matériels hardwares hardwares : we will install the various hardware today
Information informations informations informations : we must analyze information
Mail messages mails mails : I receive plenty of mail every day
Means moyen mean mean : this is a means to an end
Performance performances performances performances : the system's performance is half of the expected performance
Revenue revenus revenues revenues : the company revenue is increasing
Software logiciels softwares softwares : we list all the software running on this system
Training formations trainings trainings : we provide operator and developer training
Travel voyages travels travels : we will reimburse all travel by air or rail

Note that mean (without an s) means unfair, shabby or average, while the collective noun means is the proper translation of the French "un moyen"or "des moyens".

Some nouns can be uncountable for a given meaning and countable for another meaning. For instance:

  • material is uncountable when meaning information or documentation such as in training material
  • material is countable when it refers to physical items such as in construction materials

An other example:

  • performance is countable when you talk about the performing act of an artist or the rendering of piece of art (Don Giovanni had many performances since 1787 ≃ représentations sur scène); it can be countable when you talk about employee performance, but only if you are talking about the variation of performance across employees.
  • in all other cases, performance is uncountable, i.e. it does not take a plural mark.

In doubt, assume these words are uncountable and dismiss your French habits. For instance it is always safe to use material as an uncountable noun and in business apart from show business, it is always safe to use performance as uncountable.

To create the plural of abbreviations, do not use an apostrophe, simply append a lowercase s: NEPs are network equipment providers (and not NEP's are networks equipments providers).

When creating search indexes, remember that the singular and plural forms are often used. Hence, for systems that do not equate them (e.g.wikis), create both entries and redirect the plural to the singular form.

Faux amis

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A faux ami is a word that looks the same in English and French but means a different thing in each language.

We list here the most common faux amis, feel free to add to the list!

To keep things simple, we ignore subtle meanings and differences. For instance, an estimation is actually a valid alternate word for an estimate. However, the latter is more common and less prone to double meaning. Similarly, coherent can also mean consistent, but the latter is much more frequent. Another example is assume: one can indeed assume responsibility.

False friends — sort on 3rd column to list English false friends alphabetically
French proper equivalent don't confuse with comment for French speakers
Abaque graph abacus abacus : means boulier
Accélérer accelerate fasten fasten : means attacher
Actualiser ap-/depreciate actualize actualize : means réaliser i.e. to make real
Actuel current actual actual : means réel
Affluent influent affluent affluent : means riche, prospère
Assumer handle, undertake assume assume : means faire l'hypothèse que
Automatiser automate automatize automatize : means 'automatiser' too, but is deemed pedantic
Cohérent consistent coherent coherent : means sticking together as in "laser emits coherent light".
Condamner condemn, sentence condone condone : means accept an immoral behavior
Conjointe/jointe joint joined joined : means connecté, "lié"; use joint solution, not joined solution
Délai lead time delay delay : means retard
Demander to ask to demand to demand : means exiger
Estimation estimate estimation estimation : means l'estime; estimations are however synonymous with estimates
Eventuellement potentially eventually eventually : means finalement
Farter to wax (skis) to fart to fart : means péter, "lacher un vent"
Influent influential influent influent : means affluent (rivière secondaire); synonymous with tributary
Nyctalopie night vision nyctalopia nyctalopia : means night blindness i.e. the opposite of the French word
Phrase sentence phrase phrase : means expression or "locution"
Ponctuellement occasionally punctually punctually : means 'ponctuellement' but only with the meaning "at the proper precise time"
Préjudice harm prejudice prejudice : means préjugé
Sanctionner to punish to sanction to sanction : means approuver
Supprimer to remove to suppress to suppress : means "tuer" or réprimer (une révolte, une pensée)
Synthétiser to summarize to synthesize to synthesize : only works for chemical processes
Trépasser to die trespass trespass : means pénétrer sans authorisation
Versatile fickle versatile versatile : means polyvalent

Use a spell checker in all applications, and set it to English only so that you can clearly see (red wiggle underline) words that do not exist. E.g. fiable does not exist (the English equivalent is reliable).

Look and feel

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Feel free to adopt my vector CSS. Here's a redlink, please don't create it! If you use my CSS, it will appear in red, embedded between a ⟦ and a ⟧.

And here is a color palette I'd like to test:  

Sandbox

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I typically use my sandbox to experiment.

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