-
1 future
['fju: ə] 1. noun1) ((what is going to happen in) the time to come: He was afraid of what the future might bring; ( also adjective) his future wife.) avenir; futur2) ((a verb in) the future tense.) futur2. adjective((of a tense of a verb) indicating an action which will take place at a later time.) futur -
2 future
future ['fju:tʃə(r)]1 noun(a) (time ahead) avenir m;∎ in (the) future à l'avenir;∎ sometime in the near future or in the not so distant future (gen) bientôt; (more formal) dans un avenir proche;∎ in the distant future dans un avenir lointain;∎ the future is still uncertain l'avenir est encore incertain;∎ I'll have to see what the future holds or has in store on verra ce que l'avenir me réserve;∎ you have to think of the future il faut songer à l'avenir(b) (prospects) avenir m;∎ young people today don't have much of a future les jeunes d'aujourd'hui n'ont pas beaucoup d'avenir;∎ he has a great future ahead of him as an actor c'est un comédien plein d'avenir;∎ she wants to assure her son's future elle veut assurer un bon avenir à son fils;∎ there is a future ahead for bilingual people in publishing le monde de l'édition offre des possibilités d'avenir pour les personnes bilingues;∎ there's no future in farming l'agriculture n'est pas un métier d'avenir∎ the future of the verb "to be" le futur du verbe "to be";∎ in the future au futur(a) (yet to happen, become) futur;∎ future generations les générations fpl futures ou à venir;∎ my future wife ma future épouse ou femme;∎ current and future needs les besoins mpl actuels et futurs;∎ at a future date à une date ultérieure;∎ I kept it for future reference je l'ai conservé comme document∎ goods for future delivery marchandises fpl livrables ultérieurementà l'avenir;∎ I shan't offer my advice in future! je ne donnerai plus de conseils désormais!;∎ in future, please ask before taking anything à l'avenir, je vous prie de demander la permission avant de prendre quoi que ce soit►► American Future Farmers of America = organisation nationale d'étudiants en agriculture;Grammar future perfect futur m antérieur;Finance Future Rate Agreement accord m de taux à terme;Grammar future tense futur m, temps m futur -
3 future
future [ˈfju:t∫ər]1. nouna. avenir m• there is a real future for bright young people in this firm cette entreprise offre de réelles perspectives d'avenir pour des jeunes gens doués• there's no future in it [+ product, relationship] cela n'a aucun avenir2. adjective━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━✎ The English word ends in e whereas the French word does not.* * *['fjuːtʃə(r)] 1.1) ( on time scale) avenir min the near ou not too distant future — dans un proche avenir
2) ( prospects) avenir m3) Linguistics (also future tense) futur m2.futures plural noun Finance contrats mpl à terme3.adjective (épith) [generation, developments, investment, earnings] futur; [prospects] d'avenir; [queen, prince etc] futur (before n) -
4 future
A n1 ( on time scale) avenir m ; in the future dans l'avenir ; in the near ou not too distant future dans un proche avenir ; in future à l'avenir ; the train/shopping centre of the future le train/le centre commercial du futur or de demain ; who knows what the future holds ou might bring? qui sait ce que l'avenir nous réserve? ; to see into the future lire l'avenir ;2 ( prospects) (of person, industry, company, sport) avenir m ; she/the company has a future elle/la compagnie a de l'avenir ; to have a (bright) future avoir un (bel) avenir ; there's no future in this kind of work ce genre de travail n'a aucun avenir ;B futures npl Fin ( in Stock Exchange) contrats mpl à terme ; currency futures devises achetées à terme ; to deal in futures faire des opérations à terme.C adj ( épith) [generation, developments, investment, earnings] futur ; [prospects] d'avenir ; [queen, prince etc] futur (before n) ; at some future date à une date ultérieure ; I'll keep it for future reference je vais le garder au cas où on en aurait besoin fml or au cas où ○ ; that would be useful for future reference cela pourrait être utile dans l'avenir. -
5 tense
[tens] I noun(a form of a verb that shows the time of its action in relation to the time of speaking: a verb in the past/future/present tense.) tempsII 1. adjective1) (strained; nervous: The crowd was tense with excitement; a tense situation.) crispé, tendu2) (tight; tightly stretched.) tendu2. verb(to make or become tense: He tensed his muscles.) (se) tendre- tensely- tenseness - tension -
6 Usage note : will
When will is used to express the future in French, the future tense of the French verb is generally used:he’ll come= il viendraIn spoken and more informal French or when the very near future is implied, the present tense of aller + infinitive can be used:I’ll do it now= je vais le faire tout de suiteIf the subject of the modal auxiliary will is I or we, shall is sometimes used instead of will to talk about the future. For further information, consult the entry shall in the dictionary.Tag questionsFrench has no direct equivalent of tag questions like won’t he? or will they? There is a general tag question n’est-ce pas? which will work in many cases:you’ll do it tomorrow, won’t you?= tu le feras demain, n’est-ce pas?In cases where an opinion is being sought, non? meaning is that not so? can be useful:that will be easier, won’t it?= ce sera plus facile, non?In many other cases the tag question is simply not translated at all and the speaker’s intonation will convey the implied question.Short answersAgain, there is no direct equivalent for short answers like no she won’t, yes they will etc. Where the answer yes is given to contradict a negative question or statement, the most useful translation is si:‘they won’t forget’ ‘yes they will’= ‘ils n’oublieront pas’ ‘si’ or (for more emphasis) bien sûr que siWhere the answer no is given to contradict a positive question or statement, the most useful translation is bien sûr que non:‘she’ll post the letter, won’t she?’ ‘no she won’t’= ‘elle va poster la lettre?’ ‘bien sûr que non’In reply to a standard enquiry the tag will not be translated:‘you’ll be ready at midday then?’ ‘yes I will’= ‘tu seras prêt à midi?’ ‘oui’For more examples and other uses, see the entry will. -
7 Usage note : for
for my sister= pour ma sœurfor the garden= pour le jardinfor me= pour moiFor particular usages see the entry for.When for is used as a preposition indicating purpose followed by a verb it is translated by pour + infinitive:for cleaning windows= pour nettoyer les vitresWhen for is used in the construction to be + adjective + for + pronoun + infinitive the translation in French is être + indirect pronoun + adjective + de + infinitive:it’s impossible for me to stay= il m’est impossible de resterit was hard for him to understand that…= il lui était difficile de comprendre que…it will be difficult for her to accept the changes= il lui sera difficile d’accepter les changementsFor the construction to be waiting for sb to do see the entry wait.For particular usages see the entry for.In time expressionsfor is used in English after a verb in the progressive present perfect tense to express the time period of something that started in the past and is still going on. To express this French uses a verb in the present tense + depuis:I have been waiting for three hours (and I am still waiting)= j’attends depuis trois heureswe’ve been together for two years (and we’re still together)= nous sommes ensemble depuis deux ansWhen for is used in English after a verb in the past perfect tense, French uses the imperfect + depuis:I had been waiting for two hours (and was still waiting)= j’attendais depuis deux heuresfor is used in English negative sentences with the present perfect tense to express the time that has elapsed since something has happened. To express this, French uses the same tense as English (the perfect) + depuis:I haven’t seen him for ten years (and I still haven’t seen him)= je ne l’ai pas vu depuis dix ansIn spoken French, there is another way of expressing this: ça fait or il y a dix ans que je ne l’ai pas vu.When for is used in English in negative sentences after a verb in the past perfect tense, French uses the past perfect + depuis:I hadn’t seen him for ten years= je ne l’avais pas vu depuis dix ans, or (in spoken French) ça faisait or il y avait dix ans que je ne l’avais pas vufor is used in English after the preterite to express the time period of something that happened in the past and is no longer going on. Here French uses the present perfect + pendant:last Sunday I gardened for two hours= dimanche dernier, j’ai jardiné pendant deux heuresfor is used in English after the present progressive tense or the future tense to express an anticipated time period in the future. Here French uses the present or the future tense + pour:I’m going to Rome for six weeks= je vais à Rome pour six semainesI will go to Rome for six weeks= j’irai à Rome pour six semainesNote, however, that when the verb to be is used in the future with for to emphasize the period of time, French uses the future + pendant:I will be in Rome for six weeks= je serai à Rome pendant six semaineshe will be away for three days= il sera absent pendant trois joursFor particular usages see A13, 14, 15 and 16 in the entry for.for is often used in English to form a structure with nouns, adjectives and verbs (weakness for, eager for, apply for, fend for etc.). For translations, consult the appropriate noun, adjective or verb entry (weakness, eager, apply, fend etc.). -
8 will
will [wɪl]1. modal verba. (future)━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► In the following examples the main verb is future, the other is present: in French both verbs must be in the future tense.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• what will he do when he finds out? qu'est-ce qu'il fera lorsqu'il s'en apercevra ?━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• will he come too? -- yes he will est-ce qu'il viendra aussi ? -- oui• I'll go with you -- oh no you won't! je vais vous accompagner -- non, certainement pas !━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When won't is used in question tags, eg won't it, won't you the translation is often n'est-ce pas.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• you will come to see us, won't you? vous viendrez nous voir, n'est-ce pas ?• that'll be okay, won't it? ça ira, n'est-ce pas ?━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When future meaning is made clear by words like tomorrow, or next week, the present tense can also be used in French.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• he'll be here tomorrow il arrive or il arrivera demain• I'll phone you tonight je t'appelle or je t'appellerai ce soir► will have + past participle━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When will indicates that something commonly happens, the present is used in French.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• the car will do 150km/h cette voiture fait du 150 km/h• thieves will often keep a stolen picture for years les voleurs gardent souvent un tableau volé pendant des annéesd. (requests, orders)━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The present tense of vouloir is often used.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• will you be quiet! veux-tu (bien) te taire !• will you please sit down! voulez-vous vous asseoir, s'il vous plaît !• will you help me? -- yes I will tu veux m'aider ? -- oui, je veux bien• will you promise to be careful? tu me promets de faire attention ?► won't ( = refuse(s) to)• will you promise? -- no I won't tu me le promets ? -- none. (invitations, offers) will you have a cup of coffee? voulez-vous prendre un café ?• will you join us for a drink? voulez-vous prendre un verre avec nous ?• won't you come with us? vous ne voulez pas venir (avec nous) ?f. ( = must) that will be the taxi ça doit être le taxipreterite, past participlea. ( = urge by willpower) he was willing her to look at him il l'adjurait intérieurement de le regarderb. ( = bequeath) to will sth to sb léguer qch à qn3. nouna. ( = determination) volonté f• to do sth against sb's will faire qch contre la volonté de qn (PROV) where there's a will there's a way(PROV) vouloir c'est pouvoir► at willb. ( = document) testament m• the last will and testament of... les dernières volontés de...* * *I 1. [wɪl, əl]modal auxiliary1) ( to express the future)she'll help you — elle t'aidera; ( in the near future) elle va t'aider
2) (expressing consent, willingness)‘will you help me?’ - ‘yes, I will’ — ‘est-ce que tu m'aideras?’ - ‘oui, bien sûr’
‘have a chocolate’ - ‘thank you, I will’ — ‘prends un chocolat’ - ‘volontiers, merci’
do what ou as you will — fais ce que tu veux
will do! — (colloq) d'accord!
3) (in commands, requests)will you pass the salt, please? — est-ce que tu peux me passer le sel, s'il te plaît?
‘I can give the speech’ - ‘you will not!’ — ‘je peux faire le discours’ - ‘pas question!’
‘I'll do it’ - ‘no you won't’ — ‘je vais le faire’ - ‘il n'en est pas question’
4) (in offers, invitations)you'll have another cake, won't you? — vous prendrez bien un autre gâteau?
any teacher will tell you that... — n'importe quel professeur te dira que...
2.these things will happen — ce sont des choses qui arrivent; ( in exasperation)
transitive verb1) ( urge)2) (wish, desire) vouloir3) Law léguer3. II 1. [wɪl]to have a strong/weak will — avoir beaucoup/peu de volonté
2) Law testament m2.at will adverbial phrase [select, take] à volonté••where there's a will there's a way — Prov quand on veut on peut Prov
-
9 shall
shall [∫æl]• I'll buy three, shall I? je vais en acheter trois, d'accord ?• let's go in, shall we? entrons, voulez-vous ?• shall we ask him to come with us? si on lui demandait de venir avec nous ?* * *[ʃæl, ʃəl]Note: When shall is used to form the future tense in English, the same rules apply as for will. You will find a note on this and on question tags and short answers near the entry will Imodal auxiliary1) ( in future tense)I shall ou I'll see you tomorrow — je vous verrai demain
we shall not ou shan't have a reply before Friday — nous n'aurons pas de réponse avant vendredi
2) ( in suggestions)let's buy some peaches, shall we? — et si on achetait des pêches?
3) sout (in commands, contracts etc)the sum shall be paid on signature of the contract — le montant devra être versé à la signature du contrat
thou shalt not steal — Bible tu ne voleras point
-
10 shall
❢ When shall is used to form the future tense in English, the same rules apply as for will. You will find a note on this and on question tags and short answers near the entry will. modal aux1 ( in future tense) I shall ou I'll see you tomorrow je vous verrai demain ; we shall not ou shan't have a reply before Friday nous n'aurons pas de réponse avant vendredi ;2 ( in suggestions) shall I set the table? est-ce que je mets la table? ; shall we go to the cinema tonight? et si on allait au cinéma ce soir? ; let's buy some peaches, shall we? et si on achetait des pêches? ;3 sout (in commands, contracts etc) you shall do as I say tu dois faire ce que je te dis ; the sum shall be paid on signature of the contract le montant devra être versé à la signature du contrat ; thou shalt not steal Bible tu ne voleras point. -
11 Usage note : not
When not is used without a verb before an adjective, an adverb, a verb or a noun, it is translated by pas:it’s a cat not a dog= c’est un chat pas un chiennot at all= pas du toutnot bad= pas malFor examples and particular usages see the entry not.When not is used to make the verb be negative (it’s not a cat) it is translated by ne…pas in French ; ne comes before the verb or the auxiliary in compound tenses and pas comes after the verb or auxiliary: ce n’est pas un chat ;she hasn’t been ill= elle n’a pas été malade.When not is used with the auxiliary do to make a verb negative (he doesn’t like oranges) do + not is translated by ne…pas in French: il n’aime pas les oranges.When not is used in the present perfect tense (I haven’ t seen him, she hasn’t arrived yet), ne…pas is again used in French on either side of the appropriate auxiliary ( avoir or être): je ne l’ai pas vu, elle n’est pas encore arrivée.When not is used with will to make a verb negative (will not, won’t), ne…pas is used with the future tense in French:she won’t come by car= elle ne viendra pas en voitureWhen used with a verb in the infinitive, ne…pas are placed together before the verb:he decided not to go= il a décidé de ne pas y alleryou were wrong not to tell her= tu as eu tort de ne pas le lui direWhen not is used in question tags, the whole tag can usually be translated by the French n’est-ce pas, e.g.she bought it, didn’t she?= elle l’a acheté, n’est-ce pas?For usages not covered in this note see the entry not. -
12 when
when [wen]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. adverb2. conjunction━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. adverb• when does the term start? quand commence le trimestre ?• when did it happen? quand cela s'est-il passé ? ça s'est passé quand ?• when was the Channel Tunnel opened? quand a-t-on ouvert le tunnel sous la Manche ?• when's the wedding? quand a lieu le mariage ?━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► There is no inversion after quand in indirect questions.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• when does the train leave? à quelle heure part le train ?• when do you finish work? à quelle heure est-ce tu quittes le travail ?2. conjunctiona. ( = at the time that) quand━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► If the when clause refers to the future, the future tense is used in French.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• when you're older, you'll understand quand tu seras plus grand, tu comprendras━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► en + present participle may be used, if the subject of both clauses is the same, and the verb is one of action.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► when + noun/adjective• when a student at Oxford, she... quand elle était étudiante à Oxford, elle...• my father, when young, had a fine tenor voice quand mon père était jeune il avait une belle voix de ténorb. (with day, time, movement) où• there are times when I wish I'd never met him il y a des moments où je souhaiterais ne l'avoir jamais rencontréc. ( = which is when) he arrived at 8 o'clock, when traffic is at its peak il est arrivé à 8 heures, heure à laquelle la circulation est la plus intense• in August, when peaches are at their best en août, époque où les pêches sont les plus savoureusesd. ( = the time when) he told me about when you got lost in Paris il m'a raconté le jour où vous vous êtes perdu dans Parise. ( = after) quand• when he had made the decision, he felt better après avoir pris la décision, il s'est senti soulagéf. ( = whereas) alors que• he thought he was recovering, when in fact... il pensait qu'il était en voie de guérison alors qu'en fait...g. ( = if) how can I be self-confident when I look like this? comment veux-tu que j'aie confiance en moi en étant comme ça ?• how can you understand when you won't listen? comment voulez-vous comprendre si vous n'écoutez pas ?* * *[wen], US [hwen] 1.1) ( with prepositions) quandsince when? — depuis quand? also iron
2) ( the time when)2.that's when I was born — ( day) c'est le jour où je suis né; ( year) c'est l'année où je suis né
1) ( as interrogative) quand (est-ce que)I forget exactly when — ( time) j'ai oublié l'heure exacte; ( date) j'ai oublié la date exacte
tell me ou say when — ( pouring drink) dis-moi stop
2) ( as relative)at the time when — ( precise moment) au moment où; ( during same period) à l'époque où
one morning when he was getting up, he... — un matin en se levant, il...
3) ( then)she resigned in May, since when we've had no applicants — elle a démissionné en mai, et depuis (lors) nous n'avons reçu aucune candidature
4) ( whenever) quand3.when I sunbathe, I get freckles — chaque fois que je prends un bain de soleil, j'ai des taches de rousseur
1) ( at the precise time when) quand, lorsque2) ( during the period when) quand, lorsque3) ( as soon as) quand, dès queI was strolling along when all of a sudden... — je marchais tranquillement quand tout d'un coup...
4) ( when it is the case that) alors quewhy buy their products when ours are cheaper? — pourquoi acheter leurs produits alors que les nôtres sont moins chers?
5) ( whereas) alors que -
13 Usage note : when
when did she leave?= quand est-ce qu’elle est partie? or elle est partie quand? or quand est-elle partie?Note that in questions quand on its own requires inversion of the verb and subject:when are they arriving?= quand arrivent-ils?but when followed by est-ce que needs no inversion: quand est-ce qu’ils arrivent?Occasionally a more precise time expression is used in French:when’s your birthday?= quelle est la date de ton anniversaire?when did he set off?= à quelle heure est-il parti?Remember that the future tense is used after quand if future time is implied:tell him when you see him= dis-le-lui quand tu le verrasIt is often possible to give a short neat translation for a when clause if there is no change of subject in the sentence:when I was very young, I lived in Normandy= tout jeune, j’habitais en Normandiewhen he was leaving, he asked for my address= en partant, il m’a demandé mon adresseIn expressions such as the day when, the year when, où is used:the day when we got married= le jour où nous nous sommes mariés -
14 Usage note : be
I am tired= je suis fatiguéCaroline is French= Caroline est françaisethe children are in the garden= les enfants sont dans le jardinIt functions in very much the same way as to be does in English and it is safe to assume it will work as a translation in the great majority of cases.Note, however, that when you are specifying a person’s profession or trade, a/an is not translated:she’s a doctor= elle est médecinClaudie is still a student= Claudie est toujours étudianteThis is true of any noun used in apposition when the subject is a person:he’s a widower= il est veufButLyons is a beautiful city= Lyon est une belle villeFor more information or expressions involving professions and trades consult the usage note Shops, Trades and Professions.For the conjugation of the verb être see the French verb tables.Grammatical functionsThe passiveêtre is used to form the passive in French just as to be is used in English. Note, however, that the past participle agrees in gender and number with the subject:the rabbit was killed by a fox= le lapin a été tué par un renardthe window had been broken= la fenêtre avait été casséetheir books will be sold= leurs livres seront vendusour doors have been repainted red= nos portes ont été repeintes en rougeIn spoken language, French native speakers find the passive cumbersome and will avoid it where possible by using the impersonal on where a person or people are clearly involved : on a repeint nos portes en rouge.Progressive tensesIn French the idea of something happening over a period of time cannot be expressed using the verb être in the way that to be is used as an auxiliary verb in English.The presentFrench uses simply the present tense where English uses the progressive form with to be:I am working= je travailleBen is reading a book= Ben lit un livreIn order to accentuate duration être en train de is used: je suis en train de travailler ; Ben est en train de lire un livre.The futureFrench also uses the present tense where English uses the progressive form with to be:we are going to London tomorrow= nous allons à Londres demainI’m (just) coming!= j’arrive!I’m (just) going!= j’y vais!The pastTo express the distinction between she read a newspaper and she was reading a newspaper French uses the perfect and the imperfect tenses: elle a lu un journal/elle lisait un journal:he wrote to his mother= il a écrit à sa mèrehe was writing to his mother= il écrivait à sa mèreHowever, in order to accentuate the notion of describing an activity which went on over a period of time, the phrase être en train de (= to be in the process of) is often used:‘what was he doing when you arrived?’‘he was cooking the dinner’= ‘qu’est-ce qu’il faisait quand tu es arrivé?’ ‘il était en train de préparer le dîner’she was just finishing her essay when …= elle était juste en train de finir sa dissertation quand …The compound pastCompound past tenses in the progressive form in English are generally translated by the imperfect in French:I’ve been looking for you= je te cherchaisFor progressive forms + for and since (I’ve been waiting for an hour, I had been waiting for an hour, I’ve been waiting since Monday etc.) see the entries for and since.ObligationWhen to be is used as an auxiliary verb with another verb in the infinitive ( to be to do) expressing obligation, a fixed arrangement or destiny, devoir is used:she’s to do it at once= elle doit le faire tout de suitewhat am I to do?= qu’est-ce que je dois faire?he was to arrive last Monday= il devait arriver lundi derniershe was never to see him again= elle ne devait plus le revoir.In tag questionsFrench has no direct equivalent of tag questions like isn’t he? or wasn’t it? There is a general tag question n’est-ce pas? (literally isn’t it so?) which will work in many cases:their house is lovely, isn’t it?= leur maison est très belle, n’est-ce pas?he’s a doctor, isn’t he?= il est médecin, n’est-ce pas?it was a very good meal, wasn’t it?= c’était un très bon repas, n’est-ce pas?However, n’est-ce pas can very rarely be used for positive tag questions and some other way will be found to express the extra meaning contained in the tag: par hasard ( by any chance) can be very useful as a translation:‘I can’t find my glasses’ ‘they’re not in the kitchen, are they?’= ‘je ne trouve pas mes lunettes’ ‘elles ne sont pas dans la cuisine, par hasard?’you haven’t seen Gaby, have you?= tu n’as pas vu Gaby, par hasard?In cases where an opinion is being sought, si? meaning more or less or is it? or was it? etc. can be useful:it’s not broken, is it?= ce n’est pas cassé, si?he wasn’t serious, was he?= il n’était pas sérieux, si?In many other cases the tag question is simply not translated at all and the speaker’s intonation will convey the implied question.In short answersAgain, there is no direct equivalent for short answers like yes I am, no he’s not etc. Where the answer yes is given to contradict a negative question or statement, the most useful translation is si:‘you’re not going out tonight’ ‘yes I am’= ‘tu ne sors pas ce soir’ ‘si’In reply to a standard enquiry the tag will not be translated:‘are you a doctor?’ ‘yes I am’= ‘êtes-vous médecin?’ ‘oui’‘was it raining?’ ‘yes it was’= ‘est-ce qu’il pleuvait?’ ‘oui’ProbabilityFor expressions of probability and supposition ( if I were you etc.) see the entry be.Other functionsExpressing sensations and feelingsIn expressing physical and mental sensations, the verb used in French is avoir:to be cold= avoir froidto be hot= avoir chaudI’m cold= j’ai froidto be thirsty= avoir soifto be hungry= avoir faimto be ashamed= avoir hontemy hands are cold= j’ai froid aux mainsIf, however, you are in doubt as to which verb to use in such expressions, you should consult the entry for the appropriate adjective.Discussing health and how people areIn expressions of health and polite enquiries about how people are, aller is used:how are you?= comment allez-vous?( more informally) comment vas-tu?( very informally as a greeting) ça va?are you well?= vous allez bien?how is your daughter?= comment va votre fille?my father is better today= mon père va mieux aujourd’huiDiscussing weather and temperatureIn expressions of weather and temperature faire is generally used:it’s cold= il fait froidit’s windy= il fait du ventIf in doubt, consult the appropriate adjective entry.Visiting somewhereWhen to be is used in the present perfect tense to mean go, visit etc., French will generally use the verbs venir, aller etc. rather than être:I’ve never been to Sweden= je ne suis jamais allé en Suèdehave you been to the Louvre?= est-ce que tu es déjà allé au Louvre?or est-ce que tu as déjà visité le Louvre?Paul has been to see us three times= Paul est venu nous voir trois foisNote too:has the postman been?= est-ce que le facteur est passé?The translation for an expression or idiom containing the verb to be will be found in the dictionary at the entry for another word in the expression: for to be in danger see danger, for it would be best to … see best etc.This dictionary contains usage notes on topics such as the clock, time units, age, weight measurement, days of the week, and shops, trades and professions, many of which include translations of particular uses of to be. -
15 be
present tense am [ʌm], are [a:], is [ɪz]; past tense was [woz], were [w†:]; present participle 'being; past participle been [bi:n, (·meriцan) bɪn]; subjunctive were [w†:]; short forms I'm [aim] (I am), you're [ju†] (you are), he's [hi:z] (he is), she's [ʃi:z] (she is), it's [ɪ ] (it is), we're [wi†] (we are), they're [Ɵe†] (they are); negative short forms isn't (is not), aren't [a:nt] (are not), wasn't (was not), weren't [w†:nt] (were not)1) (used with a present participle to form the progressive or continuous tenses: I'm reading; I am being followed; What were you saying?.) être2) (used with a present participle to form a type of future tense: I'm going to London.)3) (used with a past participle to form the passive voice: He was shot.) être4) (used with an infinitive to express several ideas, eg necessity (When am I to leave?), purpose (The letter is to tell us he's coming), a possible future happening (If he were to lose, I'd win) etc.) devoir; aller5) (used in giving or asking for information about something or someone: I am Mr Smith; Is he alive?; She wants to be an actress; The money will be ours; They are being silly.) être•- being- the be-all and end-all -
16 now
now [naʊ]1. adverba. ( = at this time) maintenant ; ( = these days, at the moment) actuellement ; ( = at that time) alors• the couple, who now have three children... ce couple, qui a maintenant trois enfants...• what are you doing now? qu'est-ce que tu fais en ce moment ?• it's now or never! c'est le moment ou jamais !• before now people thought that... auparavant on pensait que...• long before now it was realized that... il y a longtemps déjà, on comprenait que...► by now• by now it was clear that... dès lors, il était évident que...► even now• people do that even now les gens font ça encore aujourd'hui► (every) now and again, (every) now and then de temps en temps► for now• from now until then d'ici là► from now on (with present and future tense) à partir de maintenant ; (with past tense) dès lors► till or until or up to now ( = till this moment) jusqu'à présent ; ( = till that moment) jusque-làb. (without reference to time) now! bon !• now, now! allons, allons !• now, Simon! (warning) allons, Simon !• come now! allons !• well, now! eh bien !• now then, let's start! bon, commençons !• now then, what's all this? alors, qu'est-ce que c'est que ça ?• now, they had been looking for him all morning or ils avaient passé toute la matinée à sa recherche• now do be quiet for a minute bon, ça suffit !2. conjunction* * *[naʊ] 1. 2.1) ( at the present moment) maintenantany time ou moment now — d'un moment à l'autre
now fast, now slowly — tantôt vite, tantôt lentement
(every) now and then ou again — de temps en temps
2) ( with preposition)before ou until now — jusqu'à présent
3) ( in the past)by now it was too late — à ce moment-là, il était trop tard
4) ( without temporal force)now Paul would never do a thing like that — Paul, lui, ne ferait jamais une chose pareille
now! now! —
there now, what did I tell you? — eh bien, qu'est-ce que je t'avais dit?
now then, let's get down to work — bon, reprenons le travail
-
17 hold
I 1. [həuld] past tense, past participle - held; verb1) (to have in one's hand(s) or between one's hands: He was holding a knife; Hold that dish with both hands; He held the little boy's hand; He held the mouse by its tail.) tenir2) (to have in a part, or between parts, of the body, or between parts of a tool etc: He held the pencil in his teeth; She was holding a pile of books in her arms; Hold the stamp with tweezers.) tenir3) (to support or keep from moving, running away, falling etc: What holds that shelf up?; He held the door closed by leaning against it; Hold your hands above your head; Hold his arms so that he can't struggle.) retenir4) (to remain in position, fixed etc when under strain: I've tied the two pieces of string together, but I'm not sure the knot will hold; Will the anchor hold in a storm?) tenir5) (to keep (a person) in some place or in one's power: The police are holding a man for questioning in connection with the murder; He was held captive.) détenir6) (to (be able to) contain: This jug holds two pints; You can't hold water in a handkerchief; This drawer holds all my shirts.) contenir7) (to cause to take place: The meeting will be held next week; We'll hold the meeting in the hall.) tenir, avoir lieu8) (to keep (oneself), or to be, in a particular state or condition: We'll hold ourselves in readiness in case you send for us; She holds herself very erect.) (se) tenir9) (to have or be in (a job etc): He held the position of company secretary for five years.) occuper10) (to think strongly; to believe; to consider or regard: I hold that this was the right decision; He holds me (to be) responsible for everyone's mistakes; He is held in great respect; He holds certain very odd beliefs.) tenir, croire11) (to continue to be valid or apply: Our offer will hold until next week; These rules hold under all circumstances.) être valable12) ((with to) to force (a person) to do something he has promised to do: I intend to hold him to his promises.) obliger (qqn) à tenir ses engagements13) (to defend: They held the castle against the enemy.) défendre14) (not to be beaten by: The general realized that the soldiers could not hold the enemy for long.) résister15) (to keep (a person's attention): If you can't hold your pupils' attention, you can't be a good teacher.) retenir16) (to keep someone in a certain state: Don't hold us in suspense, what was the final decision?) avoir lieu17) (to celebrate: The festival is held on 24 June.) posséder18) (to be the owner of: He holds shares in this company.) (se) maintenir19) ((of good weather) to continue: I hope the weather holds until after the school sports.) patienter20) ((also hold the line) (of a person who is making a telephone call) to wait: Mr Brown is busy at the moment - will you hold or would you like him to call you back?) tenir21) (to continue to sing: Please hold that note for four whole beats.) garder22) (to keep (something): They'll hold your luggage at the station until you collect it.) réserver à23) ((of the future) to be going to produce: I wonder what the future holds for me?)2. noun1) (the act of holding: He caught/got/laid/took hold of the rope and pulled; Keep hold of that rope.) prise2) (power; influence: He has a strange hold over that girl.) emprise3) ((in wrestling etc) a manner of holding one's opponent: The wrestler invented a new hold.) prise•- - holder- hold-all - get hold of - hold back - hold down - hold forth - hold good - hold it - hold off - hold on - hold out - hold one's own - hold one's tongue - hold up - hold-up - hold with II [həuld] noun((in ships) the place, below the deck, where cargo is stored.) cale -
18 might
might [maɪt]1. modal verba. ( = may)━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When might expresses present, future or past possibility, it is often translated by peut-être, with the appropriate tense of the French verb.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━b. ( = could)━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• you might have told me you weren't coming! tu aurais pu me prévenir que tu ne viendrais pas !might I suggest that...? puis-je me permettre de suggérer que... ?c. ( = should) I might have known j'aurais dû m'en douter━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━d. (emphatic) and, I might add, it was entirely his fault et j'ajouterais que c'était entièrement de sa faute• why did he give her his credit card? -- you might well ask! mais pourquoi lui a-t-il donné sa carte de crédit ? -- va savoir !• one might well ask whether... on est en droit de se demander si...• try as he might, he couldn't do it il a eu beau essayer, il n'y est pas arrivé2. noun* * *I [maɪt]1) ( indicating possibility)‘will you come?’ - ‘I might’ — ‘tu viendras?’ - ‘peut-être’
you might have guessed that... — vous aurez peut-être deviné que...
try as I might, I can't do it — j'ai beau essayer, je n'y arrive pas
he was thinking about what might have been — il pensait à ce qui se serait passé si les choses avaient été différentes
if they had acted quickly he might well be alive — s'ils avaient agi plus vite il serait peut-être encore en vie
4) sout ( when making requests)and who, might I ask, are you? —
and who might you be? — ( aggressive) on peut savoir qui vous êtes?
5) ( when making suggestions)6) (when making statement, argument)one might argue ou it might be argued that — on pourrait dire or faire valoir que
as you ou one might expect — comme de bien entendu
7) (expressing reproach, irritation)I might have known ou guessed! — j'aurais dû m'en douter!
8) ( in concessives)II [maɪt]they might not be fast but they're reliable — ils ne sont peut-être pas rapides mais on peut au moins compter sur eux; well I 2. 2
1) ( power) puissance f2) ( physical strength) force f -
19 could
could [kʊd]a. (past)━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When could refers to ability in the past, it is translated by the perfect of pouvoir, or by the imperfect if the time is continuous.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• I couldn't phone because I had no change je n'ai pas pu téléphoner parce que je n'avais pas de monnaie━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When used with a verb of perception, could is not usually translated.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► could have is usually translated by the conditional of avoir + pu.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━b. (present)━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When could refers to the present, the present tense is generally used in French.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When could indicates future possibility, it is translated by the conditional.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• you could at least apologize! tu pourrais au moins t'excuser !━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• could you pass me the salt, please? pourriez-vous me passer le sel, s'il vous plaît ?• could I have a word with you? est-ce que je pourrais vous parler un instant (s'il vous plaît) ?* * *[kʊd]can I -
20 May
may [meɪ]a. ( = might)━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When may expresses present, future or past possibility, it is often translated by peut-être, with the appropriate tense of the French verb.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• a vegetarian diet may not provide enough iron il se peut qu'un régime végétarien soit trop pauvre en fer• one may as well say £5 million autant dire 5 millions de livres• one may well ask if this is a waste of money on est en droit de se demander si c'est une dépense inutileb. ( = can) pouvoir• may I interrupt for a moment? je peux vous interrompre une seconde ?• may I tell her now? -- you may as well est-ce que je peux le lui dire maintenant ? -- après tout, pourquoi pas ?• may I? vous permettez ?c. (in prayers, wishes) may he rest in peace qu'il repose en paix* * *[meɪ]
- 1
- 2
См. также в других словарях:
(the) future tense — the future tense UK US noun linguistics the verb tense used for talking about future time Thesaurus: verb forms and tenseshyponym … Useful english dictionary
the future tense — UK / US noun linguistics the verb tense used for talking about future time … English dictionary
On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense — Author(s) … Wikipedia
(the) perfect tense — the perfect tense UK US noun linguistics the form of a verb that is used for talking about an action that has been completed before the present time. In the sentence ‘Sharon has gone home’, ‘has gone’ is the perfect tense of ‘go’. Thesaurus: verb … Useful english dictionary
Future tense — In grammar, the future tense is a verb form that marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future (in an absolute tense system), or to happen subsequent to some other event, whether that is… … Wikipedia
future tense — noun a verb tense that expresses actions or states in the future • Syn: ↑future • Hypernyms: ↑tense * * * noun : a verb tense traditionally formed in English with will and shall and expressive of time yet to come * * * future tense … Useful english dictionary
the perfect tense — UK / US noun linguistics the form of a verb that is used for talking about an action that has been completed before the present time. In the sentence Sharon has gone home , has gone is the perfect tense of go . See: the future perfect, the past… … English dictionary
Future tense — Future Fu ture (?; 135), a. [F. futur, L. futurus, used as fut. p. of esse to be, but from the same root as E. be. See {Be}, v. i.] That is to be or come hereafter; that will exist at any time after the present; as, the next moment is future, to… … The Collaborative International Dictionary of English
(the) future perfect tense — the ˌfuture ˈperfect 7 [future perfect] (also the ˌfuture ˌperfect ˈtense) noun singular … Useful english dictionary
future tense, the — noun LINGUISTICS the verb tense used for talking about future time … Usage of the words and phrases in modern English
(the) future perfect — the future perfect UK US noun linguistics the verb tense used for showing that an action will be finished at a particular time in the future The future perfect in English is formed using ‘will have’, as in ‘He will have finished the work by… … Useful english dictionary