GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW) | ||||||
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16:50 Mar 17, 2018 |
French to English translations [Non-PRO] General / Conversation / Greetings / Letters / child's homework | |||||||
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| Selected response from: Tony M France Local time: 01:02 | ||||||
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Summary of answers provided | ||||
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4 +5 | Does your friend know how to ride? |
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5 +1 | to know HOW to + INF |
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4 | Does your friend know how to ride horses? |
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Discussion entries: 13 | |
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Does your friend know how to ride horses? Explanation: Take it from someone (me) who rode all kinds of horses for years! |
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Does your friend know how to ride? Explanation: In EN, if we use 'ride' without some other qualifier (bicycle, waves, etc.), then it will always be taken as referring to horse-riding — we have 'riding schools' and 'riding hats' and 'riding boots', none of which needs 'horse-' with it. Obviously 'monter à cheval' is an expression not meaning 'get on a horse' (without going anywhere?), but simply 'ride' I think 'know' is appropiate in this instance, since it is clearly a specific skill that needs to be learned. In the language of kids of an age to whom this sort of homework would be addressed, 'copine' very often specifically implies 'girlfriend', as distinct from simple 'a friend who is a girl' (e.g. typically 'une pote'!) This is current modern FR as it is spoken over here in France by kids of this age-group, and I think it would be entirely justifiable here to use 'girlfriend' — especially in the context of a school exercise, and to fully render the presumably deliberate use of 'copine' rather than just 'ami'. Of course, if this were someone asking another girl about her friend (who is not necessarily her 'significant other'!), then the situation would be different. If people ask you "Est-ce que vous avez une copine ?", they don't mean 'do you have any female friends?' — they very clearly and pointedly mean 'do you have a (specific) girlfriend?' It is just unfortunate that in EN, 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend' have this often unwelcome connotation; we need another word for 'girl/boy-friend', but sadly, we don't have a good substitute. In the specific context here, I'd judge that the writer specifically used 'copine' as they wanted it to mean 'girlfriend' in the romantically-attached sense (IF they imagined a scenario talking to a boy) — otherwise, had they wished to be gender-neutral, they could have said just 'ami'. |
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