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41 undergo
past tense - underwent; verb1) (to experience or endure: They underwent terrible hardships.) subir2) (to go through (a process): The car is undergoing tests/repairs; She has been undergoing medical treatment.) subir -
42 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.). -
43 bid
[bid] 1. verb1) (- past tense, past participle bid - to offer (an amount of money) at an auction: John bid ($1,000) for the painting.) faire une enchère (de)2) ((with for) - past tense, past participle bid - to state a price (for a contract): My firm is bidding for the contract for the new road.) faire une offre (pour)3) (- past tense bade [bæd], past participle bidden - to tell (someone) to (do something): He bade me enter.) enjoindre (de)4) (- past tense bade [bæd], past participle bidden - to express a greeting etc (to someone): He bade me farewell.) dire2. noun1) (an offer of a price: a bid of $20.) offre2) (an attempt (to obtain): a bid for freedom.) tentative (pour obtenir)•- bidder- bidding - biddable -
44 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
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45 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 -
46 hang
[hæŋ]past tense, past participle - hung; verb1) (to put or fix, or to be put or fixed, above the ground eg by a hook: We'll hang the picture on that wall; The picture is hanging on the wall.) suspendre, être accroché2) (to fasten (something), or to be fastened, at the top or side so that it can move freely but cannot fall: A door hangs by its hinges.) accrocher, être accroché3) ((past tense, past participle hanged) to kill, or to be killed, by having a rope put round the neck and being allowed to drop: Murderers used to be hanged in the United Kingdom, but no-one hangs for murder now.) pendre, être pendu4) ((often with down or out) to be bending, drooping or falling downwards: The dog's tongue was hanging out; Her hair was hanging down.) pendre5) (to bow (one's head): He hung his head in shame.) baisser•- hanger- hanging - hangings - hangman - hangover - get the hang of - hang about/around - hang back - hang in the balance - hang on - hang together - hang up -
47 clip
I 1. [klip] past tense, past participle - clipped; verb1) (to cut (foliage, an animal's hair etc) with scissors or shears: The shepherd clipped the sheep; The hedge was clipped.) couper; tondre2) (to strike sharply: She clipped him over the ear.) frapper2. noun1) (an act of clipping.) taille, tonte2) (a sharp blow: a clip on the ear.) taloche3) (a short piece of film: a video clip.) extrait•- clipper- clipping II 1. [klip] past tense, past participle - clipped; verb(to fasten with a clip: Clip these papers together.) attacher2. noun(something for holding things together or in position: a paper-clip; a hair-clip; bicycle-clips (= round pieces of metal etc for holding the bottom of trouser legs close to the leg).) attache, pince -
48 shine
1. past tense, past participle - shone; verb1) (to (cause to) give out light; to direct such light towards someone or something: The light shone from the window; The policeman shone his torch; He shone a torch on the body.) briller; éclairer2) (to be bright: She polished the silver till it shone.) briller3) ((past tense, past participle shined) to polish: He tries to make a living by shining shoes.) polir4) ((often with at) to be very good (at something): He shines at games; You really shone in yesterday's match.) briller2. noun1) (brightness; the state of being well polished: He likes a good shine on his shoes; a ray of sunshine.) brillant2) (an act of polishing: I'll just give my shoes a shine.) polissage•- shining- shiny - shininess -
49 speed
[spi:d] 1. noun1) (rate of moving: a slow speed; The car was travelling at high speed.) vitesse2) (quickness of moving.) vitesse2. verb1) ((past tense, past participles sped [sped] speeded) to (cause to) move or progress quickly; to hurry: The car sped/speeded along the motorway.) aller à toute vitesse2) ((past tense, past participle speeded) to drive very fast in a car etc, faster than is allowed by law: The policeman said that I had been speeding.) faire un excès de vitesse•- speeding- speedy - speedily - speediness - speed bump - speed trap - speedometer - speed up -
50 defer
I [di'fə:] past tense, past participle - deferred; verb(to put off to another time: They can defer their departure.) différerII [di'fə] past tense, past participle - deferred; verb((with to) to act according to the wishes or opinions of another or the orders of authority: I defer to your greater knowledge of the matter.) déférer à- in deference to - deferment - deferral -
51 shear
[ʃiə]past tense - sheared; verb1) (to clip or cut wool from (a sheep).) tondre2) ((past tense shorn: often with off) to cut (hair) off: All her curls have been shorn off.) couper3) ((past tense shorn: especially with of) to cut hair from (someone): He has been shorn (of all his curls).) couper4) (to cut or (cause to) break: A piece of the steel girder sheared off.) (se) cisailler•- shears -
52 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
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53 would
would [wʊd]1. modal verba.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When would is used to form the conditional, the French conditional is used.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• I wouldn't worry, if I were you à ta place, je ne m'inquiéterais pas• to my surprise, he agreed -- I never thought he would à ma grande surprise, il a accepté -- je ne l'aurais jamais pensé• who would have thought it? qui l'aurait pensé ?• I said I'd go, so I'm going j'ai dit que j'irais, alors j'y vais• I said I'd go, so I went j'avais dit que j'irais, alors j'y suis allé━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• if you would come with me, I'd go to see him si vous vouliez bien m'accompagner, j'irais le voir━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━would you wait here please! attendez ici s'il vous plaît !• would you close the window please voulez-vous fermer la fenêtre, s'il vous plaît► would you like ( = do you want)would you like some tea? voulez-vous du thé ?• would you like to go for a walk? est-ce que vous aimeriez faire une promenade ?• 50 years ago the streets would be empty on Sundays il y a 50 ans, les rues étaient vides le dimanche• I saw him come out of the shop -- when would this be? je l'ai vu sortir du magasin -- quand ?d. (inevitability) you would go and tell her! évidemment tu es allé le lui dire !• it would have to rain! évidemment il fallait qu'il pleuve !e. (conjecture) it would have been about 8 o'clock when he came il devait être 8 heures à peu près quand il est venu2. modifier* * *[wʊd, wəd]Note: When would is used with a verb in English to form the conditional tense, would + verb is translated by the present conditional of the appropriate verb in French and would have + verb by the past conditional of the appropriate verb: I would do it if I had time = je le ferais si j'avais le temps; I would have done it if I had had time = je l'aurais fait si j'avais eu le temps; he said he would fetch the car = il a dit qu'il irait chercher la voitureFor more examples, particular usages and all other uses of would see the entry below1) (in sequence of past tenses, in reported speech)if we'd left later we would have missed the train — si nous étions partis plus tard nous aurions raté le train
wouldn't it be nice if... — ce serait bien si...
they couldn't find anyone who would take the job — ils n'arrivaient pas à trouver quelqu'un qui accepte le poste
5) (expressing desire, preference)switch off the radio, would you? — éteins la radio, tu veux bien?
8) ( when giving advice)9) ( expressing exasperation)‘he denies it’ - ‘well he would, wouldn't he?’ — ‘il le nie’ - ‘évidemment!’
‘she put her foot in it (colloq)’ - ‘she would!’ — ‘elle a mis les pieds dans le plat (colloq)’ - ‘tu m'étonnes!’
10) ( expressing an assumption)let's see, that would be his youngest son — voyons, ça doit être son plus jeune fils
11) (indicating habitual event or behaviour in past: used to) -
54 weave
[wi:v]past tense - wove; verb1) (to make by crossing strands in a pattern: to weave cloth.) tisser2) (to tell (an interesting story).) inventer3) ((past tense, past participle weaved) to move backwards and forwards or from side to side: The cyclist weaved in and out of the traffic.) (se) faufiler•- weaver -
55 ground
I.ground1 [graʊnd]1. noun• to lie/sit on the ground se coucher/s'asseoir par terre• to run o.s. into the ground with work s'épuiser au travailc. ( = area for special purpose) terrain m2. plural nounb. ( = gardens) parc mc. ( = reason) motif m• there are grounds for believing that... il y a lieu de penser que...• the latest figures give us grounds for optimism les derniers chiffres nous permettent d'être optimistes• on personal/medical grounds pour (des) raisons personnelles/médicales• on what grounds? à quel titre ?• on the grounds that... en raison du fait que...a. [+ plane, pilot] interdire de voler à ; ( = keep on ground) retenir au solb. [+ teenager] (inf) priver de sortiec. [+ ship] faire s'échouer4. compounds• we can't change the ground rules at this stage on ne peut pas changer les règles du jeu maintenant ► ground staff noun personnel m au solII.ground2 [graʊnd]1. verbpast tense, past participle of grind2. adjective[coffee, spices] moulu3. compounds* * *[graʊnd] 1. 2.1) ( surface underfoot) sol m, terre fto get off the ground — [plane] décoller; fig [idea] prendre fig
to prepare the ground — fig ouvrir la voie ( for à)
to clear the ground — lit, fig déblayer le terrain
2) (area, territory) lit, fig terrain mto cover a lot of ground — lit faire beaucoup de chemin; fig avancer beaucoup
to break fresh ou new ground — innover
on dangerous ground — ( in discussion) sur un terrain miné; ( in dealings) dans une position délicate
3) gen, Sport ( for specific activity) terrain m4) ( reason) gen, Law motifs mpl, raisons fpl5) fig (in contest, discussion)to gain ground — gagner du terrain (on, over sur)
to lose ground — perdre du terrain (to au profit de)
to give ground — céder du terrain (to devant; on, over au niveau de)
to hold ou stand (one's) ground — tenir bon
to shift one's ground — fig changer son fusil d'épaule (on au sujet de)
6) US Electricity terre f7) Art fond m3.grounds plural noun1) (of house, institution) parc m (of de)private grounds — propriété f privée
2) ( reasons)grounds for — motifs de [divorce, criticism, hope]
4.on (the) grounds of — en raison de [cost, public interest]; pour cause de [adultery, negligence]
ground past participle adjective [coffee, pepper] moulu5.transitive verb1) Aviation immobiliser [aircraft]2) Nautical3) ( base)to ground something on ou in — fonder quelque chose sur
4) (colloq) ( keep in) priver [quelqu'un] de sortie5) US Electricity relier [quelque chose] à la terre••to run somebody/something to ground — dénicher (colloq) quelqu'un/quelque chose
to run ou drive oneself into the ground — s'user au travail
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56 Usage note : since
In time expressionssince is used in English after a verb in the present perfect or progressive present perfect tense to indicate when something that is still going on started. To express this French uses a verb in the present tense + depuis:I’ve been waiting since Saturday= j’attends depuis samediI’ve lived in Rome since 1988= j’habite à Rome depuis 1988I had been waiting since nine o’clock= j’attendais depuis neuf heuresIn negative time expressionsAgain since is translated by depuis, but in negative sentences the verb tenses used in French are the same as those used in English:I haven’t seen him since Saturday= je ne l’ai pas vu depuis samediI hadn’t seen him since 1978= je ne l’avais pas vu depuis 1978As a conjunctionIn time expressionsWhen since is used as a conjunction, it is translated by depuis que and the tenses used in French parallel exactly those used with the preposition depuis (see above):since she’s been living in Oxford= depuis qu’elle habite à Oxfordsince he’d been in Paris= depuis qu’il était à ParisNote that in time expressions with since French native speakers will generally prefer to use a noun where possible when English uses a verb:I haven’t seen him since he left= je ne l’ai pas vu depuis son départshe’s been living in Nice since she got married= elle habite à Nice depuis son mariageFor particular usages see the entry since.Meaning becausesince she was ill, she couldn’t go= comme elle était malade or étant donné qu’elle était malade, elle ne pouvait pas y allerAs an adverbhe hasn’t been seen since= on ne l’a pas vu depuisFor particular usages see C in the entry since. -
57 BE
be [bi:]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. link verb3. modal verb6. compounds━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. link verba. être• who is that? -- it's me! qui est-ce ? -- c'est moi !• if I were you I would refuse si j'étais vous, je refuserais━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The following translations use ce + être because they contain an article or possessive in French.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► No article is used in French, unless the noun is qualified by an adjective.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• how are you? comment allez-vous ?d. ( = cost) coûter• how much is it? combien ça coûte ?e. ( = equal) fairef.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• to be cold/hot/hungry/thirsty/ashamed/right/wrong avoir froid/chaud/faim/soif/honte/raison/tort━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► Note how French makes the person, not the part of the body, the subject of the sentence in the following.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━g. (with age) avoir• how old is he? quel âge a-t-il ?► to be + -ing━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► French does not distinguish between simple and continuous actions as much as English does.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• I'm coming! j'arrive !• what have you been doing this week? qu'est-ce que tu as fait cette semaine ?• will you be seeing her tomorrow? est-ce que vous allez la voir demain ?━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► être en train de + infinitive emphasizes that one is in the middle of the action.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• I haven't got time, I'm cooking the dinner je n'ai pas le temps, je suis en train de préparer le repas━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The imperfect tense is used for continuous action in the past.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► have/had been +... for/since━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► French uses the present and imperfect where English uses the perfect and past perfect.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• I'd been at university for six weeks when my father got ill j'étais à l'université depuis six semaines quand mon père est tombé malade• he's a friend of yours, isn't he? c'est un ami à toi, n'est-ce pas ?• she wasn't happy, was she? elle n'était pas heureuse, n'est-ce pas ?• so it's all done, is it? tout est fait, alors ?• you're not ill, are you? tu n'es pas malade j'espère ?c. (in tag responses) they're getting married -- oh are they? ils vont se marier -- ah bon ?• he's going to complain about you -- oh is he? il va porter plainte contre toi -- ah vraiment ?━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• he's always late, isn't he? -- yes, he is il est toujours en retard, n'est-ce pas ? -- oui• is it what you expected? -- no it isn't est-ce que tu t'attendais à ça ? -- non━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The past participle in French passive constructions agrees with the subject.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The passive is used less in French than in English. It is often expressed by on + active verb.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• it is said that... on dit que...━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The reflexive can be used to describe how something is usually done.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━3. modal verb► am/are/is to + infinitivea. ( = will)• now the old lady has died, her house is to be sold maintenant que la vieille dame est décédée, sa maison va être mise en venteb. ( = must) you are to follow these instructions exactly tu dois suivre ces instructions scrupuleusementc. ( = should) he is to be pitied il est à plaindre• not to be confused with... à ne pas confondre avec...d. ( = be destined to) this was to have serious repercussions cela devait avoir de graves répercussionse. ( = can) these birds are to be found all over the world on trouve ces oiseaux dans le monde entiera. être ; ( = take place) avoir lieu• he is there at the moment, but he won't be there much longer il est là en ce moment mais il ne va pas rester très longtemps► there is/are ( = there exist(s)) il y a• here you are at last! te voilà enfin !• here you are! ( = take this) tiens (or tenez) !b. ► to have been (to a place)• where have you been? où étais-tu passé ?a. (weather, temperature) faire• it's fine/cold/dark il fait beau/froid/nuit• it's windy/foggy il y a du vent/du brouillard• it was then we realized that... c'est alors que nous nous sommes rendu compte que...• it was they who suggested that... ce sont eux qui ont suggéré que...• why is it that she is so popular? pourquoi a-t-elle tant de succès ?6. compounds* * *noun: abrév bill of exchange -
58 be
be [bi:]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. link verb3. modal verb6. compounds━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. link verba. être• who is that? -- it's me! qui est-ce ? -- c'est moi !• if I were you I would refuse si j'étais vous, je refuserais━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The following translations use ce + être because they contain an article or possessive in French.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► No article is used in French, unless the noun is qualified by an adjective.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• how are you? comment allez-vous ?d. ( = cost) coûter• how much is it? combien ça coûte ?e. ( = equal) fairef.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• to be cold/hot/hungry/thirsty/ashamed/right/wrong avoir froid/chaud/faim/soif/honte/raison/tort━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► Note how French makes the person, not the part of the body, the subject of the sentence in the following.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━g. (with age) avoir• how old is he? quel âge a-t-il ?► to be + -ing━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► French does not distinguish between simple and continuous actions as much as English does.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• I'm coming! j'arrive !• what have you been doing this week? qu'est-ce que tu as fait cette semaine ?• will you be seeing her tomorrow? est-ce que vous allez la voir demain ?━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► être en train de + infinitive emphasizes that one is in the middle of the action.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• I haven't got time, I'm cooking the dinner je n'ai pas le temps, je suis en train de préparer le repas━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The imperfect tense is used for continuous action in the past.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► have/had been +... for/since━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► French uses the present and imperfect where English uses the perfect and past perfect.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• I'd been at university for six weeks when my father got ill j'étais à l'université depuis six semaines quand mon père est tombé malade• he's a friend of yours, isn't he? c'est un ami à toi, n'est-ce pas ?• she wasn't happy, was she? elle n'était pas heureuse, n'est-ce pas ?• so it's all done, is it? tout est fait, alors ?• you're not ill, are you? tu n'es pas malade j'espère ?c. (in tag responses) they're getting married -- oh are they? ils vont se marier -- ah bon ?• he's going to complain about you -- oh is he? il va porter plainte contre toi -- ah vraiment ?━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• he's always late, isn't he? -- yes, he is il est toujours en retard, n'est-ce pas ? -- oui• is it what you expected? -- no it isn't est-ce que tu t'attendais à ça ? -- non━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The past participle in French passive constructions agrees with the subject.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The passive is used less in French than in English. It is often expressed by on + active verb.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• it is said that... on dit que...━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The reflexive can be used to describe how something is usually done.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━3. modal verb► am/are/is to + infinitivea. ( = will)• now the old lady has died, her house is to be sold maintenant que la vieille dame est décédée, sa maison va être mise en venteb. ( = must) you are to follow these instructions exactly tu dois suivre ces instructions scrupuleusementc. ( = should) he is to be pitied il est à plaindre• not to be confused with... à ne pas confondre avec...d. ( = be destined to) this was to have serious repercussions cela devait avoir de graves répercussionse. ( = can) these birds are to be found all over the world on trouve ces oiseaux dans le monde entiera. être ; ( = take place) avoir lieu• he is there at the moment, but he won't be there much longer il est là en ce moment mais il ne va pas rester très longtemps► there is/are ( = there exist(s)) il y a• here you are at last! te voilà enfin !• here you are! ( = take this) tiens (or tenez) !b. ► to have been (to a place)• where have you been? où étais-tu passé ?a. (weather, temperature) faire• it's fine/cold/dark il fait beau/froid/nuit• it's windy/foggy il y a du vent/du brouillard• it was then we realized that... c'est alors que nous nous sommes rendu compte que...• it was they who suggested that... ce sont eux qui ont suggéré que...• why is it that she is so popular? pourquoi a-t-elle tant de succès ?6. compounds* * *[biː, bɪ]1) gen êtreit's me —
2) ( in probability)were it not that... — si ce n'était que...
had it not been for Frank, I'd have missed the train — sans Frank j'aurais raté le train
3) ( phrases)let ou leave him be — laisse-le tranquille
-
59 her
her [hɜ:r]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► la precedes the verb, except in positive commands.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• look at her! regardez-la !━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When l' is the object of a tense consisting of avoir + past participle, e is added to the past participle.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► Some French verbs take an indirect object. This means they are either followed by à + noun, or require an indirect pronoun.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• what are you giving Pat? -- we're going to give her a CD qu'allez-vous offrir à Pat ? -- nous allons lui offrir un CD━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• have you phoned Suzy? -- yes, I phoned her last night tu as téléphoné à Suzy ? -- oui je lui ai téléphoné hier soir━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► lui precedes the verb, except in positive commands.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• what are you going to say to her? qu'est-ce que tu vas lui dire ?c. (emphatic) elled. ► preposition + her elle━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► son is used instead of sa before a vowel or silent h.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━* * *[hɜː(r), hə(r)] 1. 2.determiner son/sa/ses -
60 left
left [left]1. verbpast tense, past participle of leave• what's left? qu'est-ce qui reste ?• who's left? qui est-ce qui reste ?• how many are left? combien est-ce qu'il en reste ?• are there any left? est-ce qu'il en reste ?• I've got $6 left il me reste six dollars• have you got any left? est-ce qu'il vous en reste ?► left over• how much was left over? combien en reste-t-il ?2. adjective• my left arm/foot mon bras/pied gauche3. adverb[turn, look] à gauche4. nouna. gauche f5. compounds• the left-hand door/page la porte/page de gauche• he's very left-wing il est très à gauche ► left-winger noun (Politics) homme m (or femme f ) de gauche* * *[left] 1. 2.1) ( side or direction) gauche fkeep (to the) left — Automobile tenez votre or restez à gauche
2) Politics3) Sport (poing m) gauche m3.adjective gauche4.adverb à gauche••left, right and centre — ( everywhere) partout
См. также в других словарях:
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