Glossary entry (derived from question below)
French term or phrase:
prévenez l’opération du déplacement
English translation:
inform operations about the movement
French term
prévenez l’opération du déplacement
I find these two sentences confusing, in terms of the meaning of 'prévenez':
1. Délimitez un périmètre de sécurité adéquat au sol sous le ventilateur qui fera l’objet d’une inspection et prévenez l’opération.
2. Déplacez le périmètre de sécurité à chaque fois qu’un autre ventilateur sera inspecté et prévenez l’opération du déplacement.
In the first sentence, I would take it to mean make sure the ventilator stays switched off, but that doesn't make much sense in the second sentence. So maybe it means warn people about the inspection and then about the move to the next ventilator, but I would have thought that would be prévenez de.
| 3 +1 | inform operations about the movement |
Terry Richards
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PRO (2): philgoddard, Yolanda Broad
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Proposed translations
France
30 years in IT, Engineering degree.
Native in: English (Variants: UK, US, British) 
Works in: French to English, English
inform operations about the movement
| agree |
writeaway
: also prefer inform rather than warn. this is hardly unusual usage of the verb prévenir. it has many translation options, depending on context.
3 hrs
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| neutral |
philgoddard
: I may be wrong, but I'm not sure you can do this in French. Wouldn't it be something like "département des opérations"?
1 day 5 mins
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Well, I did say "if" and this is Canadian French which I'm not familiar with. However, it certainly makes sense in the context...
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Discussion
It seems to be used in this way (correctly or not, I don't know!) when it has a general meaning of 'provide warning for'; in other words, it is being used as if it were a transitive verb with what is being warned about becoming a direct instead of indirect object.
That said, I just noticed in my dictionary that 'prévenir' is also used as a transitive verb with the meaning 'to forestall, anticipate' — but I can't really see that notion fitting in this particular context.