When will French finally invent the counterparts of these English words?

You have surely already heard this linguistic a priori: French is a much richer language than English. While it is true that spoken French adopt a more variable terminology, English nevertheless has almost twice as many entries in its dictionary: the proof with these few words for which any attempt at translation is Pull out hair !

-Shallow

Shallow means superficial. But there is a catch. Superficial, in English, translates transparently: we will say superficial. One could therefore qualify someone with light, worldly preoccupations with both epithets. Nevertheless, for a shallow river, if not "shallow", the French language does not include an equivalent qualifying adjective.

- creepy

We could bring this one closer to "creepy" in colloquial language. But these two terms differ in the nuance they provide. Creepy mixes the notions of creepy, sinister, bizarre… But the British will also use it in less serious contexts. If the term applies a lot to the world of horror movies or video games, one can also produce a slightly creepy facial expression (which makes you uncomfortable), but we will also say of a man with behaviors unhealthy towards women that he is creepy... Nothing to do with Radiohead's "I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo" with a singer who is looking for his place in this world... understand nothing!

-Belong

Again, maybe Thom Yorke can take us a step further. "I don't belong here" means, a little too literally, "I don't belong here"... But in this context, the precision makes it untranslatable again: belong takes on the meaning of having ties, of being at one's place, hold a certain legitimacy in belonging to a place, a community...

-Toddler

A toddler is a young child, the term very often implying that he is just beginning to learn to walk. We will therefore give a toddler an age of around 2 years. Bambin could apply in French, but where a toddler is a bambin, the converse does not always hold. The expression “toddler” comes to us, but it is much more vague.

-Feedback

Here we have a more or less appropriate translation: a return. "I'm giving you feedback" will even be said, by anglicism, "I'm giving you feedback". But there again, the subtext is not exactly the same: I can, in my feedback on a document, for example, write “it was very well argued. ". A feedback is much more complete and detailed than that! You can expect pages of commentary and analysis on the fruit of your labor. Again, we could sum it up by saying that feedback can be feedback, but that the two terms are not equivalent.

- Scalable

If I present to you a business model qualified as scalable, a real praise in the entrepreneurial world, I indicate to you its evolutionary character. But this evolution is done without conditions, spontaneously: it includes a real idea of ​​autonomy and adaptability… A whole bunch of different qualifiers to sum up what the British think of as one and the same concept, that of scalable.

- Safe

As many of you all begin to graduate this upcoming Fall or Spring, we want to make sure you're capturing that degree… https://t.co/8RuvWZqdFO

— The Fairy GRADMother ™️ Tue Jul 21 13:26:24 +0000 2020

This one is better known, we understand the idea of ​​security behind it. This security can be physical, emotional, health (stay safe were the watchwords of pandemic politeness)... Some people can also be "safe" in a competition (not eliminated), or quite simply cautious. .

- Clutter

Here, we are dealing with an immense disorder, a “bazaar”. The clutter truly designates all of these scattered objects, it is, in short, a mixture between a "bric-a-brac" and a "shambles". But it can also designate the action, used as a verb, of creating this state of disorder in, for example, “I cluttered my living room”.

- hype

Some translation sites will translate it as “hype”. But a hype is not only media or advertising: it is a state of general excitement around a trend, a fad, a feature or an overpriced product... The word is also often taken up in Franglais, since it does not have a hexagonal counterpart.

- Overkill

“Not necessary” would perhaps be the most appropriate translation. Overkill is doing something that is useless, exaggerated, too much...

- Errands

In French, we often go to "run a race", singular or plural, when we go to buy food or other items we need. The word somehow induces the same idea as errands, but with an unsystematic commercial logic in English: if I plan to go to the grocery store, but also to the post office while passing by to do a small favor for a friend on the way , I am going to run some errands. The British are sometimes of an incomparable pragmatism in their language!

- Siblings

A sibling is simply a sibling. The term is therefore a non-gendered equivalent of these two words, which can be very practical if one is trying to evoke a very large sibling group, to ask someone if they have brothers and/or sisters , or if we want to refer to our sibling which does not identify with this gender binarity!

- Successful

Successful can be said of someone who is fulfilling in his career, who is successful in what he undertakes… Who is successful, in short. Across the Channel, there is surprisingly no adjective to transcribe this idea!

To improve your English and learn more about all these subtleties, the Live-English.net platform is accessible to you on the internet, offering a wide choice of teachers and working methods.