{"id":455,"date":"2021-05-31T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-31T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iti-frenchnetwork.co.uk\/?p=455"},"modified":"2026-06-10T12:31:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T11:31:34","slug":"training-grant-make-sure-your-english-is-english-hayley-reports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iti-frenchnetwork.co.uk\/?p=455","title":{"rendered":"Training grant: Make Sure Your English is\u2026 English \u2013 Hayley reports"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

ITI Members of the French Network can apply for a\u00a0<\/em>training grant<\/em><\/a>\u00a0to organise or attend an event. In March 2021,\u00a0<\/em>Hayley Leva<\/em><\/a>\u00a0received the grant to attend the event<\/em> Make Sure Your English is\u2026 English, organised by Magistrad and hosted by Joachim L\u00e9pine. Here she shares what she learned.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Do we say that in English? Hang on\u2026 is that franglais<\/em>? After living and working in France for almost 10 years, I catch myself asking questions like that a little too often. And while my slips and made-up words are a great source of entertainment for family and friends back in the UK, they clearly have no place in my translation work. I was therefore delighted when I came across \u201cMake Sure Your English is\u2026 English\u201d on the MAGISTRAD<\/a> website. The two-part workshop is led by Joachim L\u00e9pine (Traductions LION<\/a>) and is designed to help French to English translators \u201cwalk the boundary\u201d between the two languages and eliminate the influence of French from their work. Just what I needed!<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Joachim kicked off the first session by giving us a brief history of French and English and explaining some of the broad differences between the two languages. For example, French is often more formal than English in similar contexts \u2013 French speakers often try to \u201cspeak the way they write\u201d, whereas English speakers tend to \u201cwrite the way they speak\u201d. One of the other participants made the astute observation that there is a parallel between the French and English languages and the respective legal systems: French is about codes and rules, whereas English is about usage and precedents.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The remainder of the workshop was dedicated to the hallmarks of English at the word, sentence and text levels. Joachim took us through each hallmark in turn, illustrating them with examples from his own work and lots of interactive exercises. We did quick brainstorms to share ideas and translated short extracts ourselves so that we could really get to grips with what we were learning. Joachim also recommended some books and style guides that he has found useful, and emphasised the importance of reading good English writing to develop our \u201cinner ear\u201d.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Some of the hallmarks we looked at were familiar to me. For example, I was aware that \u201celegant variation\u201d (the use of synonyms to avoid repetition) is frowned upon in English but considered good style in French, and I aim to pay attention to this while translating. However, there were others that I hadn\u2019t picked up on or given much thought to. English speakers spontaneously use a lot of phrasal verbs and word pairs for instance. We arrange<\/s> set up meetings, discuss<\/s> talk about projects and cancel<\/s> call off events. We get up bright and early, keep our desks neat and tidy, and try to stay fit and healthy. Weaving these features into our translations is a relatively simple way of making our texts more idiomatic.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The examples I\u2019ve quoted above only give the tiniest glimpse of everything we covered in the workshop, which was helpful and enjoyable in equal measure. Joachim is very knowledgeable and made the sessions fun and interactive. And best of all? I was able to apply some of his tips and tricks almost immediately. I\u2019ve also become far more attentive to language, style and structure when I\u2019m reading, and I\u2019m sure that this will enhance my translations. All in all, I wholeheartedly recommend the course to any French to English translators who feel that their English might be \u201cslipping\u201d or anyone who wants to learn more about the stylistic differences between French and English.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ITI Members of the French Network can apply for a\u00a0training grant\u00a0to organise or attend an event. In March 2021,\u00a0Hayley Leva\u00a0received […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2295,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grant-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iti-frenchnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iti-frenchnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iti-frenchnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iti-frenchnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iti-frenchnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=455"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/iti-frenchnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1924,"href":"https:\/\/iti-frenchnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions\/1924"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iti-frenchnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iti-frenchnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iti-frenchnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iti-frenchnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}