translation

“During” or “while” before an “ing word”?

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I work in a small company and I would say we have an intermediate level of English (for French people). We do not agree on the translation of our slogan. An incorrect translation would be quite embarrassing for a company with customers all over the world. To put this in context: our company is specialized … Read more

Is the concept “free of charge social services” correct

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In french we use “gratuité social” which literary says “free of charge social services “. We use this expression to talk about things like roads, hospital, health insurance, collective goods, and everything we don’t pay personally, but collectively. Context: I want to use it in a sentence that will say “the concept of ‘free social’ … Read more

Should I translate names of foreign company or organisations to English?

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When I’m writing in English and want to refer to foreign company/organisaion names, should I translate or keep the original name, or use both? I can imagine a few possibilities, depending on factors such as whether the company/organisation is known world-wide or whether or not they have an official English name. I think it’s fairly … Read more

How to write “just so you know” politely in formal letters?

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In my first language (Thai), a typical formal letter usually has quite a similar format to English letters, with one exception… Between the last paragraph of the body of the letter and that “Yours sincerely” line, we usually insert another short paragraph, usually with only one sentence, typically can be translated literally to, then-inform-to-know which … Read more

What would I call something (figurative or not) that ameliorates the understanding of an abstract topic?

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I am looking for an English equivalent to the German “anschaulich, veranschaulichen”. Illustrate or illustrates feel most appropriate to me, but according to some dictionaries visual or figurative are more common or approriate. Consider these two specific cases: If I indeed have a picture, graph, etc. which can be used to describe the abstract topic. … Read more

What if sentence begins with a verb in second form?

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I’m trying to translate the answer I’ve received on the other StackExchnage’s site: https://photo.stackexchange.com/a/42539/22065 Here’s the sentence: Provided you match the field of view (by multiplying the focal length by 1.6) and keep the entrance pupil diameter the same (by multiplying the f-number by 1.6) then form a purely theoretical point of view depth of … Read more