Sunday, February 8, 2015

French words which English speakers already know and use: cause celebre

cause celebre - my spellchecker wanted to turn c e l e b r e into celebrate
How could you translate this phrase without just using the French?

I once tried translating French into English for the benefit of a journalist colleague at a motoring conference in France. Oddly enough, the longest words were the easiest to translate because many three syllable words are from Latin or Greek, or are combinations of two smaller words, given a new nuance - isn't that a French word?

The hardest ones are phrases when you see two possible translations, sometimes with opposite meanings, and don't know which applies. In English we often use innuendo, exaggeration, or irony.

Here's another:
Creche

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