English by Email - Friday, 13 April 2012

DISPATCHES from the EFL front

Week beginning: 09/04/2012

Short week, short selection of vocabulary, grammar and other language points

VOCABULARY
It looks interesting		It sounds good
In English we distinguish between ‘It looks’ (based on what you see) and ‘It sounds’ (based on what you hear or read)		Pour dire ‘ça a l’air’ ou ‘ça semble’ on distingue souvent en anglais si c’est ‘d’après ce qu’on voit’ (looks) ou ‘d’après ce qu’on entend ou lit’ (sounds)
		VOCABULARY
Contrary to a common belief, you can’t see theGreat Wall of China from space		I have no one under me – unlike the other managers
« Contrary to » is used for non-persons, or abstractions (often phrases like ‘what they said’)		Deux versions de ‘contrairement à’ ; unlike peut aussi se traduire par ‘à la différence de’
PREPOSITION
While the work continues we’ll be receiving guests		While most guests are satisfied with their stay, one or two complain about petty matters
Be careful ‘while’ usually means two activities are taking place at the same time, but occasionally it contrasts two phenomena.		Attention, normalement ‘while’ veut dire ‘pendant que’. Mais parfois la signification est plutôt ‘tandis que’
		PRONUNCIATION
ea (i:) read, lead, breathe, leave		ea(e) weather, head, health
The ‘ea’ combination is not always pronounced like the vowel in ‘sweet’. It’s often pronounced like the vowel in ‘sweat’		La combinaison ‘ea’ ne se pronounce pas toujours i: (comme ‘sweet’ ou ‘suite’) mais souvent ‘e’ (comme ‘sweat’)
VOCABULARY
He doesn’t want to agree		but eventually we will persuade him
It’s ‘false friend’ time again.‘Eventually’ implies that something will happen, though you may need to be patient, whereas the French lookalike ‘éventuellement’ means ‘possibly’.		C’est encore l’heure des faux amis. ‘Eventually’ se traduit ‘par la suite’ ‘finalement’, ‘finir par’, etc.
		VOCABULARY
Our annual turnover (US sales revenue) is €27m		We have very little staff turnover
This one’s a bit complicated.For the French, the word ‘turnover’ has the American meaning of ‘staff turnover’ not the British meaning of ‘sales revenue’.In French ‘sales revenue’ is ‘chiffre d’affaires’ and staff turnover is ‘roulement de personnel’ (or ‘turnover’ of course).		Un peu compliqué!Turnover: en GB = chiffre d’affaires, aux USA = roulement de personnel. Vérifier avec votre interlocuteur.Pour vous exprimer, le plus clair, à mon avis, est d’utiliser sales revenue pour chiffre d’affaires et staff turnover pour roulement de personnel