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1 Usage note : might
Although usage shows that may and might are interchangeable in many contexts, might indicates a more remote possibility than may. French generally translates this element of possibility using peut-être with the appropriate verb tense:it might snow= il va peut-être neiger(It is also possible to translate this more formally using il se peut + subjunctive: il se peut qu’il neige). For particular examples see might1 1.It is possible to translate might differently depending on the nature of the context and the speaker’s point of view:he might not come= il risque de ne pas venirimplies that this is not a desirable outcome for the speaker ;he might not come= il pourrait ne pas venir or il se peut qu’il ne vienne pashowever, is neutral in tone. Where there is the idea of a possibility in the past which has not in fact occurred (see might1 2), French uses the past conditional of the verb (which is often pouvoir):it might have been serious (but wasn’t in fact)= ça aurait pu être graveThis is also the case where something which could have taken place did not, thus causing annoyance:you might have said thanks!= tu aurais pu dire merci!(see might1 7).might, as the past tense of may, will automatically occur in instances of reported speech:he said you might be hurt= il a dit que tu serais peut-être blesséFor more examples see the entry might1 and bear in mind the rules for the agreement of tenses.Where there is a choice between may and might in making requests, might is more formal and even rather dated. French uses inversion (je peux = puis-je?) in this context and puis-je me permettre de…? (= might I…?) is extremely formal.Might can be used to polite effect - to soften direct statements: you might imagine that…or to offer advice tactfully: it might be wise to…In both cases, French uses the conditional tense of the verb: on pourrait penser que… ; ce serait peut-être une bonne idée de… The use of well in phrases such as he might well be right etc. implies a greater degree of likelihood.For translations of might well, may well, see B2 in the entry well1. -
2 able
able [ˈeɪbl]1. adjectivea. to be able to do sth ( = have means or opportunity) pouvoir faire qch ; ( = know how to) savoir faire qch ; ( = be capable of) être capable de faire qch ; ( = in position to) être en mesure de faire qchb. ( = clever) capablec. ( = healthy) able in body and mind sain de corps et d'esprit2. compounds* * *['eɪbl]Note: to be able to meaning can is usually translated by the verb pouvoir: I was not able to go = je ne pouvais pas y aller; I was not able to help him = je ne pouvais pas l'aider. The main exception to this occurs when to be able to implies the acquiring of a skill, when savoir is used: he's nine and he's still not able to read = il a neuf ans et il ne sait toujours pas lireFor more examples and other uses, see the entry below1) ( having ability to) -
3 should
should [∫ʊd]a. ( = ought to)━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• shouldn't you go and see her? est-ce que vous ne devriez pas aller la voir ?what should I do? qu'est-ce que je dois faire ?• should I go too? -- yes you should est-ce que je dois y aller aussi ? -- oui tu devraisb. (past time)━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• he thought I should tell her, so I'm going to il pensait que je devais lui dire, alors je vais le faire━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When should have implies that something did not happen, it is translated by the conditional of avoir + dû.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When should have means that something probably has happened, it is translated by the present tense of devoir.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• he should have finished by now ( = probably has) il doit avoir terminé à l'heure qu'il est ; ( = but he hasn't) il aurait dû terminer à l'heure qu'il estc. ( = would)━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When should has conditional meaning, it is translated by the conditional of the French verb.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• I should go if he invited me s'il m'invitait, j'irais• we should have come if we had known si nous avions su, nous serions venus• will you come? -- I should like to est-ce que vous viendrez ? -- j'aimerais bien• why should he suspect me? pourquoi me soupçonnerait-il ?• how should I know? comment voulez-vous que je le sache ?• he's coming to apologize -- I should think so too! il vient présenter ses excuses -- j'espère bien !• and who should come in but Paul! et devinez qui est entré ? Paul bien sûr !* * *[ʃʊd, ʃəd]1) ( ought to)as it should be — ( in order) en ordre
...which is only as it should be —...ce qui est parfaitement normal
2) ( in conditional sentences)had he asked me, I should have accepted — s'il me l'avait demandé, j'aurais accepté
I don't think it will happen, but if it should... — je ne pense pas que cela arrive, mais si toutefois cela arrivait...
if you should change your mind,... — si vous changez d'avis,...
3) ( expressing purpose)4) ( in polite formulas)5) (expressing opinion, surprise)‘how long?’ - ‘an hour, I should think’ — ‘combien de temps?’ - ‘une heure, je suppose’
I should think she must be about 40 — à mon avis, elle doit avoir 40 ans environ
and then what should happen, but it began to rain! — et devine quoi - il s'est mis à pleuvoir!
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4 able
❢ To be able to meaning can is usually translated by the verb pouvoir: I was not able to go = je ne pouvais pas y aller ; I was not able to help him = je ne pouvais pas l'aider. The main exception to this occurs when to be able to implies the acquiring of a skill, when savoir is used: he's nine and he's still not able to read = il a neuf ans et il ne sait toujours pas lire.For more examples and other uses, see the entry below.1 ( having ability to) to be able to do/be pouvoir faire/être ; he was/wasn't able to read it il pouvait/ne pouvait pas le lire ; she was able to play the piano at the age of four elle savait jouer du piano à quatre ans ; I'll be (better) able to give you more information after the meeting je serai en mesure de or je pourrai vous donner plus de renseignements après la réunion ;
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