Mar 29, 2017 12:23
7 yrs ago
French term

dont les derniers hectomètres

French to English Marketing Telecom(munications)
This is from a text relating to the reorganisation of a telecommunications company. The full sentence is as follows:

Il est important d’avoir une stratégie centrale dont les derniers hectomètres de négociation de prix, de plan de lancement réalisées au niveau des OpCos.

Any help on this one is much appreciated.

Discussion

katsy Mar 31, 2017:
@ Tony Thanks for the clarification! I think I got bogged down with the réalisées... must be a typo. If I had recognised it as "qui seront/sont réalisés" I would have understood immediately!
Tony M Mar 31, 2017:
@ Katsy (2) (ran out of space!)

It's also perhaps worth bearing in mind that when the sense actually requires 'including', FR has the option of using 'y compris' — hence when something else is used instead, I always like to reflect on why that might be?

I hope my explanation makes sense, and adequately addresses the points you raised?

:-)
Tony M Mar 31, 2017:
@ Katsy Thank you for raising those points — and doing so in such a nice way!

First of all, it is indeed easy to lose sight of the fact that the underlying meaning of 'dont' is always 'of which', even though of course in most everyday circumstances that can be more readily rendered as 'including', etc. — but sometimes in EN, the syntax requires a different part of speech; consider, "250 personnes, dont la moitié femmes" > "half of whom are women". I just felt that in the particular situation here, this made it easier to fit into the sentence without having to restructure it too much — and also, better conveys the notion: 'the final stages of something' to me makes more sense than 'including the final stages'.

As for the verb issue, which I raised as you may have noticed in my suggestion below: I have frequently observed this construction in FR, where a past participle is used without an accompanying auxiliary, as we would expect in EN.

So my reading is: 'the final stages of which ... [are] carried out by/in/at/etc. OpCops' — in EN, we could use a similar construction without an auxiliary by using 'with' instead: 'with the final stages... carried out by/in/at/etc. OpCops'.

katsy Mar 30, 2017:
I am not criticising in any way, but I don't understand how "dont" can be translated by 'of which' here. Surely, in that case, there should be another verb? "Of which the final stages of price negotiation etc. etc. + verb?"
I note also that there is "réalisées", and I don't understand, even on several careful readings, what "réalisées" qualifies. I would be grateful for all enlightenment. I put this in DB as I wouldn't have room to ask Tony directly in his answer box. TIA

Proposed translations

+2
5 hrs
Selected

the final stages of which

All credit is entirely due to Katsy for the 'final stages' part — but do note that the sentence structure as it stands rather precludes the use of 'including' here, and fits a lot easier with the use of 'of which' (which is, of course, the underlying meaning of 'dont').

The FR omits an auxiliary with the participle 'réalisées', but in EN you may well find you need to add one in.
Peer comment(s):

agree B D Finch
7 mins
Thanks, B! :-)
agree Nathalie Stewart
4 hrs
Thanks, Nathalie!
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "I'd like to thank both Tony and Katsy for their help with this, and only wish I could allocate points to both of you."
11 mins

including the final stages...

... of price negotiation etc...

(literally the last few hundred yards)
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