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Trouble with French "important" | ||
Tags: French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| FuroraCeltica Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6864 days ago 1187 posts - 1427 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 1 of 9 14 June 2009 at 3:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Le taux important de criminalité ne devrait pas affecter les touristes étrangers trop fortement
I have this translated as "The important crime rate should not effect foreign tourists too strongly", but I can't see how the phrase "important crime rate" works. Can someone help me out? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jae Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5663 days ago 206 posts - 239 votes Speaks: English*, German, Latin Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, French | Message 2 of 9 14 June 2009 at 3:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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I do not speak French, however, I put this sentence into nicetranslator.com, which is a more advanced form of translate.google.com. It translated this phrase as "the high rate of crime." Hope that helps.
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| Jar-ptitsa Triglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5897 days ago 980 posts - 1006 votes Speaks: French*, Dutch, German | Message 3 of 9 14 June 2009 at 3:45pm | IP Logged | ||
You translated incorrectly I think: in this sentence "important" = large, high. Important's little bit false friend Eng/Fr. because in French it's two meanings 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jar-ptitsa Triglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5897 days ago 980 posts - 1006 votes Speaks: French*, Dutch, German | Message 4 of 9 14 June 2009 at 3:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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I can explain you using Dutch:
important (Eng) = belangrijk important (Fr) = belagnrijk / groot, hoog, enz 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Spiderkat Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5811 days ago 175 posts - 248 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Russian | Message 5 of 9 14 June 2009 at 3:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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When the word important refers to a quantity, for instance your example, it will be translated by words such as high, large, considerable, extensive and so on.
Here are other examples... une somme d'argent importante - a large amount of money un trafic routier important - a heavy traffic 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| staf250 Pentaglot Senior Member Belgium emmerick.be Joined 5696 days ago 352 posts - 414 votes Speaks: French, Dutch*, Italian, English, German Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 6 of 9 14 June 2009 at 3:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would say, this is the perfect translation.
Some explanation on the phrase "Important crime rate". 1. "important" is the adjective and will come behind the noun "taux" "le taux important" thus means "the important rate" 2. In French they don't have and shall not make a new word for "crime rate" and they write "le taux de criminalité", but this time there is an important crime rate, so they write what you asked "le taux important de criminalité ..." On wednesday this week I'll go to France and I hope not having trouble with that "important crime rate" :) I like to help you, you're welcome, 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6010 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 7 of 9 15 June 2009 at 12:21am | IP Logged | ||
No, sorry -- there's no such thing as an "important rate", so if "important crime rate" existed in English it would mean "rate of important crimes", not "important rate of crime". This would lead you to ask "what is an important crime?" And that's a very strange question.... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6162 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 8 of 9 15 June 2009 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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"Important" in this case pretty much means "significant", as in "significantly high"
So: "Le taux important de criminalité ne devrait pas affecter les touristes étrangers trop fortement"could be read as: "The significant (or high) crime rate should not greatly affect foreign tourists." 1 person has voted this message useful |
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