English and French Editing and correction by ABC Langues

ABC Langues et Conseils English and French translation

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Translation Correction - Editing - Proofreading - Correspondence, Documents, Web Sites

Assured language presentation is vital in any field. If your text contains errors, simple or otherwise, it could raise questions on your integrity in general. This can be highly damaging if you are selling a product or service.

You may speak the language very well and gloss over any small errors easily, however the written word is there for all to see and if the terminology and syntax are not correct, your readers will notice and it could prevent them from dealing with you.

What we suggest:

The editing of your documents by a native language translator.
If you have the original documents, we would ask you to supply these also, so that we have a true reference point.

In the meantime, here are a few tips on some basic errors:

Typography:

Your surname: in English only the first letter of your surname should be capitalised i.e. Surname and not SURNAME

Punctuation marks: Generally, there is no space between the word and the punctuation marks that follow (or in the case of parentheses before the word): Colon, semicolon, brackets (parentheses), quote marks, question marks, exclamation marks, etc.
Stylistic exceptions can be made for presentation purposes to highlight the information you are providing:
Telephone numbers can be expressed: Tel. Tel: or Tel : but not Tel. :
E-mail addresses are sometimes more visible if you use a space before the colon.
Two part titles can look better if the colon separating them is centralised with a space before and after, rather as printers would use the em-dash.

Quotation marks: English quote marks are "_" or “_” and '_' or ‘_’ they are not « _ »

The ellipis (or a set of three dots or a dash in English) are used both in English and French to indicate the omission of words in a sentence. It is not a replacement for the colon, which is used to precede a list of items, a quotation, an expansion or explanation.

The semicolon is a punctuation mark indicating a more pronounced pause than that indicated by a comma and is used in formal writing to separate clauses that are closely related and could be written as separate sentences, or that are linked by 'and', 'or', 'but', or 'yet'.
        I can see no remedy for this; one cannot order him to do it.
        He knew everything about me; I knew nothing about his recent life.
It is also sometimes used between items in a list.
        ...when working with the things he seemed to like: their horse, Bonnie; the cart he brought the empty bottles home in; bits of old harness; tools and things.

A rule common to both languages: There is no space before a comma or full stop in either French or English!

Numbers:
Separators: In English commas separate thousands where French uses a space. E.g.: 15,000 in English, but 15 000 in French.
Decimals: In English the decimal separator is a point (full stop) French uses a comma.

Some common errors:

Million: No matter whether a number or an amount of currency, if a quantity is used, the word million is invariable in English:
        Fifteen million people demonstrated. However, without a qualifying number: Millions of people demonstrated.
        Twenty million pounds/euros not twenty millions pounds/euros or twenty millions of pounds/euros
        €157 million not €157 millions
The lower case letter "m" is the abbreviation for million when using figures and is expressed as:
         €157 m
Currency signs:
Note the signs €, $, £, etc., come before the figures in English and there is no space between the sign and the figures

Pluralization of English words:
Information is invariable in English
Communication is equally invariable when used alone, but in it can be plural in certain contexts:
"The communications industry"
Star is invariable in English when describing a hotel, restaurant, etc.
A three star hotel; (but the chef has three stars in the … guide)

Weekend is English! Week-end is French.

There may be an association of "barmans" in France, but the true English plural is barmen and the correct name of the French association is "Association des Barmen de France".

British journalists and TV presenters may like to take note: The correct English is "What do you think of this?" and not "What do you think to this?"

Leaving out of French words:
A bus or train ticket, an "aller-retour", is, depending on context, a "return ticket" or even just a "return".

...to be continued!

Please note: With the proliferation of Server Side, Flash and Active Content (and its regrettable possibilities of transferring virus, trojan, worm codes even to well protected PCs) we no longer download web sites for translation. We now need the actual pages requiring editing preferably in Word or text format.

What we offer:

The experience of two cultures; French and English;
Continual updating of our own English and French languages;
The daily use of the French and English languages and their idioms;
The desire to succeed, to get the job done, but to get it done right;
The respect of both languages and the desire to express the real sense and nuances of English correctly in the French language and vice versa.