D french-speaking community

[Raphaël Jakse]

Le 09/11/2013 09:53, matovitch a écrit :
> On Saturday, 9 November 2013 at 08:32:24 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
>> On Friday, November 08, 2013 23:51:16 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>> On 11/8/13 11:43 PM, Raphaël Jakse wrote:
>>> > Le 09/11/2013 08:21, John J a écrit :
>>> >> On 11/09/2013 01:40 AM, Philippe Sigaud wrote:
>>> >>> I don't even know how to say 'template' in French.
>>> >> >> Do they really need to translate keywords like 'template' >>
>>> into French,
>>> >> for that matter into any other language?
>>> > > I've still not translated the chapter about template so I > have not
>>> > decided anything yet.
>>> > > My guideline is to translate everything (I hate >
>>> speaking/reading about
>>> > computer science with people who use three English works by > French
>>> > sentance) and give the English counterpart the first time to > be
>>> able to
>>> > find help in the English world.
>>> > > Also, using French words when speaking about computer > science
>>> helps
>>> > speaking about computer science with people who are not into > it, I'm
>>> > really attached to this.
>>> > > The French translation for template is "modèle", I think > I'll
>>> use this
>>> > one. I'm okay with also giving the English "template" in my >
>>> translation,
>>> > but not use it (If somebody disagrees, I'm open to talk)
>>> > > I had a really hard time translating "slice". I opted for >
>>> "tranche".
>>>
>>> morceau?
>>
>> I suppose that that would work, but I believe that tranche would be
>> the more
>> direct translation (certainly, it's what's used when talking about
>> slices of
>> bread). However, I don't know if there's another word that happens to
>> have
>> more accurate connotations in this case.
>>
>> Given French's more limited vocabulary and resistance to adding new
>> words,
>> translating technical terms has got to be a royal pain (and then
>> L'Académie
>> Française gets ticked when folks use English words for new stuff). I
>> had my
>> desktop in French for a while at one point, which definitely improved my
>> vocabulary. For better or worse, a lot of technical words seem to get
>> translated very literally, which gets interesting sometimes
>> (particularly when
>> there doesn't seem to really be a direct translation available). But I
>> expect
>> that it's often the same in other languages, though maybe some of them
>> are
>> more open to just using the English word.
>>
>> - Jonathan M Davis
>
> "Intervalle" ?
> What about the range translation ?

I think the translation for "range" in French is "intervalle". It is 
what I chose for Ali's book.

tranche seems more undertandable to me in this context than "morceau", 
though "morceau" is an interesting option I didn't consider :-).

As for importing new words from English, I'm all into it as far as the 
term is Frenchified and its pronounciation adapted, if no word in French 
is suitable. French people are bad at pronouncing English, and an 
English word that hasn't been adopted widely as is feels weird to me.
I don't know if French has a more limited vocabulary, I don't think so. 
But creation of new words can be less natural in some situations because 
we don't have such mechanisms as taking a noun and use it as a verb 
(like "google"). Verbize nouns (i.e. adding a suitable suffix) could be 
done but it seems less usual in French than in English.

Some technical words have their dedicated French translation but the 
English word is more used as the academic translation seems really too 
weird for many people and make people laugh or not undertand when they 
are used. This is the case for "bitoduc", which is a translation of 
pipeline. French people rather use "pipeline", with the English 
pronounciation or with a Frenchified pronounciation.

"bitoduc" seems to be a numeric analogy to "aqueduc" (a tube, pipe that 
transports water), "gazoduc" (for gas) or "oleoduc" (for petrol) but 
"bitoduc" sounds laughable for many people (likely because "bite", wich 
sound the same as "bit", is a bad word meaning "dick"). "Pipeline" is 
really a French word, so people use it for translating "pipeline" in 
computer science.

I recently discovered http://bitoduc.fr/ for suggestions when 
translating technical word. Some are great, some tend to make people 
laugh or look weird.


The Office québécois de la langue française is the Quebec counterpart of 
the Académie Française and in my humble opinion, is playing a great role 
in the development of the French language. They notably introduced 
"courriel" for "e-mail", "pourriel" for "spam", "clavarder" ("clavier" + 
"bavarder") for chat, but French people just tend to use the English 
word, or don't even know the existence of the French word (this is the 
case for "clavarder", which most French seem to find original, beautiful 
or amusing but don't use. We use "chat", "tchat" or sometimes "discuter 
sur Internet"). I don't know how French speaking Canadian use these 
words, I think they tend to use less anglicisms and be more attached to 
the French language than French people themselves. They even replaced 
the "Stop" sign on roads by a "Arrêt" sign on roads, which French people 
didn't do. However, they also have their own anglicisms (e.g. they 
translate "regular" into "régulier", which has a different meaning in 
French).