Version classiqueVersion mobile

Guidelines for Translation from French into English

 | 
Robin Lambert

Part 6 Other Problems

Singular or plural

Texte intégral

This is not a grammar book, so I am not going to give you the rules for singular and plural, such as adjectives are always singular. But there are still some problems in translation.

1) General statements

When you make a general statement which applies to a group of people, things, places etc, you use the plural in English. When you use the singular, it is understood that you are referring to one particular person or thing, not making a general statement.

Dans un rapport envoyé au gouvernement italien en janvier, le comité pointe du doigt un pays où « la femme est encore perçue comme un objet sexuel ».
Le Monde, 9 mars 2005

In a report sent to the Italian government in January, the committee criticized a country where “women are still seen as sexual objects.”

2) How to translate un/une des - ‘one of the… ’

Although this construction is exactly the same in French and in English, students tend to translate the French plural by an English singular. Here are some examples:

La Chine se présente comme l’un des champions de la croissance verte. China represents itself as one of the leaders of green growth. (NOT leader)
L’indigence du système de régulation du secteur financier est depuis longtemps une des faiblesses les plus criantes de l’économie russe.
Le Monde, 27 janvier 2010

The failure of the regulation system in the financial sector has long been one of the most glaring weaknesses of the Russian economy. (NOT weakness)

M. Piñera s’est envolé vers Constitucion, l’une des villes les plus touchées par la catastrophe du 27 février.
Le Monde, 13 mars 2010

M. Piñera flew to Constitucion, one of the cities most affected by the catastrophe of 27th February. (NOT city)

3) Person/persons/people - less/fewer

In general, les personnes is translated as ‘people’, and takes a plural verb. The word ‘persons’ is restricted to legal and very formal writing. For example, if someone is murdered and we do not know who did it, a legal statement will use the formula ‘person or persons unknown.’

You have learned that ‘less’ is used with uncountable nouns (les noms indénombrables) and ‘fewer’ is used with countable nouns (les noms dénombrables). So you say ‘less money’ and ‘fewer animals’. The word ‘people’ is plural and countable: one person, two people, three people… Because ‘people’ does not have an ‘s’ at the end, it sounds uncountable, and English speakers now say ‘less people’. According to the rules of grammar, this is very very wrong, but everyone does it. I think it is now acceptable to say ‘less people’ for moins de gens.

les entreprises de moins de 20 personnes - companies employing less than 20 people

Le texte et les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont sous Licence OpenEdition Books, sauf mention contraire.

Rechercher dans OpenEdition Search

Vous allez être redirigé vers OpenEdition Search