Godwin Translations

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French to English Translation Problems

In General

This is a huge topic and although I can't do it justice here I can give you some basic notions. In general, French tends to be more abstract; English more concrete. French nouns are either masculine or feminine; so are the adjectives accompanying them. This tight system of gender agreements makes French less prone than English to ambiguity and misinterpretation.

English has the edge on French when it comes to brevity, although this is not always the case. English does not have as many verbs as French but it tries to make this up by using many different prepositions with the same verb (feel down/feel around/feel in/feel all in/feel for/ feel after/feel like/feel up to/feel up, etc. Each of these would have a different verb in French e. g. "to feel like doing something" is "avoir envie de", etc.

More about differences (Ranges of meaning, gaps, deceptive cognates, units of translation)