As much as I despise the use of the el-oh-el acronym, which seems to act as punctuation in some conversations I have with certain people, it is very much a part of everyday internet/mobile vocabulary. The French, being French, have unsurprisingly come up with their own alternative for this (highlight here: painfully ubiquitous throwaway pseudo-punctuation ) cheeky little word, and some other equivalents too… Continue Reading

Citation / Quote
Source: La nouvel observateur

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Apple a vendu plus de 300.000 iPad pour son lancement

(Reuters) – Apple annonce avoir vendu plus de 300.000 iPad samedi, au premier jour de la commercialisation de sa nouvelle machine, à mi-chemin entre un ordinateur portable et un smartphone.

Ce chiffre comprend les ventes en magasins, y compris les tablettes qui avaient déjà été commandées par internet.

Certains analystes de Wall Street estiment à cinq millions d’unités le nombre d’iPad qui seront vendus par Apple la première année du lancement.

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(Reuters) – Apple have announced the sale of over 300,000 iPads on Saturday, the first day its new machine went on sale, half-way between a laptop and a smartphone.

This figure includes store sales, and the tablets that had already been ordered online.

Some Wall Street analysts estimate that 5m iPad units will be sold by Apple in the first year of its launch.

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1. Fact: French texts generally contain 10% more words than English texts, when comparing translations.

2. annonce avoir vendu = lit. annouce to have sold. Annonce is in the present tense. Avoir is the infinitive (to have) and vendu is in the perfect (ie. past – action is perfectly complete) tense. The translation was reworded to sound natural in English.

3. entre un ordi portable et un smartphone – between a and b. A very versatile phrase.

4. ce chiffre = this figure. Les chiffres are very important to business. Chiffres d’affaires means turnover, often abbreviated as CA in business documentation. Les ventes are just as important, meaning sales.

5 qui avaient (déjà) été commandées – which had (already) been ordered. Note that in French avaient and commandées both have endings which reflect the subject – les tablettes is feminine and plural, so avoir gets the imperfect 3rd person plural ending (they had – avaient) and commandées gets the perfect tense fem. pl. ending – extra e, extra s.

6. Certains = some people/certain people

6. Unités… seront vendus = units… will be sold. Seront is the future tense (3rd person plural) ending of être, to be. Vendus is in the perfect tense, has an extra s to show it’s talking about a plural subject. Will be sold.

Any questions, just ask below. Thanks for reading.

- “n’avait à l’origine qu”   ne… que is a way of saying “only”. Avait is the imperfect (past tense) of avoir (to have) and origine means originally so the whole meaning: originally only had

- “au niveau de”   this is frequently used in French and means “at the level of”, a way to point the reader or listener’s attention to something important in the sentence.

- “il ya une vingtaine d’années”   il y a vingt ans would mean “twenty years ago”, a vingtaine is “around twenty” which we don’t really say in English. We do say “a dozen” though, which is very similar to a French douzaine (around douze).

Source: Le Monde