3 Important Tips When Translating French to English

Translating French to English is a common way to study the language and improve your skills. Tutor Nadia B. shares three big tips so you don’t get lost in the French to English translation…

Are you learning French and need to translate some of your French homework into English? Or perhaps you want to translate a French text just to be sure that you have understood the meaning?

Translation is a useful tool for improving comprehension and fluency, so read on for three important tips for translating French to English. These tips will ensure you translate quickly and accurately on your first try!

1. Don’t translate idiomatic expressions literally.

There are many French expressions that shouldn’t be taken literally when translating French English. The literal translation won’t reflect the meaning of the expression. If you come across an expression that, when translated literally makes no sense in context, you’ve probably found an idiomatic expression.

Here are some examples of French idiomatic expressions and how they can be translated into English:

• une bouche d’incendie – fire hydrant (Since “bouche” means “mouth” in English, “a mouth of fire” isn’t a correct translation!)
• une bonne fourchette – a hearty eater (or, literally, “a good fork,” but that lacks meaning to English speakers!)
• faire le pont – to make a long weekend (literally, to make a bridge, but it refers to the French habit of taking a four-day break by adding Friday or Monday to the weekend plus the mid-week day that a holiday falls on)

To improve your skills when you translate from French to English, try to learn as many idiomatic expressions as possible. If you’re listening to a French speaker and you don’t understand an expression they use, inquire as to the meaning so you can continue to build your knowledge base. Over time, this will make French translation easier and more rapid as you draw on the knowledge you already possess.

2. Use online forums and dictionaries to get help when needed.

When translating French to English, sometimes you can get stuck with certain expressions or usages. If you just can’t figure out how to appropriately translate something, forums like WordReference offer valuable help from native French speakers and highly knowledgeable second-language French speakers. There is a huge archive of threads covering a wide range of topics in French, so you can type in a phrase or word to learn more details about it. After all, when possible it is always in your best interest to use human translation for the most accurate understanding.

Online French dictionaries are another excellent resource. A well-respected one is Larousse. Here, you can access a French-English dictionary, as well as a French monolingual dictionary, in which you can find words and definitions all in French. The monolingual dictionary can be an especially great way to increase your knowledge and your proficiency as you improve your translation French to English knowledge.

3. Use cognates, but watch out for false cognates.

Cognates are a great help when trying to increase fluency in a language and translate quickly. Here is a short list of French-English cognates:

• immense – immense
• amusant – amusing, fun
• la page – the page
• la musique – the music