Glossary entry (derived from question below)
English term or phrase:
precocious
French translation:
d'une grande maturité pour son âge
Added to glossary by
Merline
May 7, 2007 17:14
17 yrs ago
English term
precocious
English to French
Art/Literary
Media / Multimedia
Hello
when she was young, she wrote precocious articles in the school journal.
connaissez d'autres définitions du mot que précoce ? qui ne colle pas trop ici.. Merci
when she was young, she wrote precocious articles in the school journal.
connaissez d'autres définitions du mot que précoce ? qui ne colle pas trop ici.. Merci
Proposed translations
(French)
| 3 +2 | d'une grande maturité pour son âge |
Merline
|
| 3 +1 | précoce |
Tony M
|
| 3 | prématurément |
Euqinimod (X)
|
| 3 -1 | bêcheux / sentencieux |
swisstell
|
| 1 | déjà |
Stéphanie Soudais
|
Change log
May 7, 2007 21:25: Merline Created KOG entry
Proposed translations
+2
8 mins
Selected
d'une grande maturité pour son âge
c'est une suggestion...
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 44 minutes (2007-05-07 17:59:17 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
Ou encore, on pourrait dire : "Quand elle était jeune, elle écrivait des articles plutôt matures dans le journal étudiant"
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 44 minutes (2007-05-07 17:59:17 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
Ou encore, on pourrait dire : "Quand elle était jeune, elle écrivait des articles plutôt matures dans le journal étudiant"
Peer comment(s):
| neutral |
Tony M
: Yes, but seems to be missing the slightly negative connotation of the original?
6 mins
|
| agree |
MBCatherine
: "articles matures", oui !
2 hrs
|
| agree |
Johannes Gleim
: si "précoce" n'est pas aimé
3 hrs
|
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
-1
13 mins
bêcheux / sentencieux
pour compléter les possibilités
Peer comment(s):
| neutral |
Tony M
: I don't think the latter would necessarily apply; the articles might just have been unusually perceptive for her age, it doesn't automatically imply anything about the style of writing as such
5 mins
|
| disagree |
writeaway
: I think you have confused precocious with pretencious with the first one and the second is unexplainable-how did you arrive at moralizing?? neither of these suggestions has anything to do with the English
2 hrs
|
1 hr
prématurément
I think we should read "precociously".
Peer comment(s):
| neutral |
Tony M
: No, it's being used as an adjective describing articles, to change it into an adverb is changing the intended sense
59 mins
|
1 hr
déjà
Lorsqu'elle était jeune, elle écrivait déjà des articles...
Je suis consciente que c'est très sous-traduit. Mais un journal d''école est sensé publier des articles rédigés par les élèves eux-mêmes, non? Pourquoi les siens auraient-ils été plus "précoces" que les autres?
Je suis consciente que c'est très sous-traduit. Mais un journal d''école est sensé publier des articles rédigés par les élèves eux-mêmes, non? Pourquoi les siens auraient-ils été plus "précoces" que les autres?
Peer comment(s):
| neutral |
Tony M
: As you say, under-translated; the very fact that they specifically chse to use this term in this context implies that there was indeed a very good reason for it...
53 mins
|
+1
2 hrs
précoce
Barbara, I'm just adding an answer so I can explain at greater length (you know me!)
First of all, apologies for the spelling mistake in my 'Ask asker' note above; I'm afraid the light's going in here, and with my bad eyes, I can't see too well.
'Precocious' isn't necessarily negative in EN, though it usually conveys the idea of 'earlier than something should be' — but nowadays, when applied to children, it is generally likely to be somewhat pejorative (there are other words that we might use if we wanted to be positive).
Yes, I do think it can be properly applied as an adjective qualifying 'articles' — just as we can talk about an artist's 'juvenile works', though there we don't necessarily mean they are infantile, but simple created at an early age!
Clearly I'm not the FR native speaker around here, and I am well aware that 'précoce' is often used with a non-negative connotation, as in 'vin précoce', for example; but I have also seen it used enough in contexts where I felt it was intended negatively for me to feel that it probably CAN be used with the same pejorative connotation as in EN — though of course I stand to be corrected in this by all our FNS colleagues!
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 4 hrs (2007-05-07 21:19:00 GMT) Post-grading
--------------------------------------------------
Right, now that's something you didn't make at all clear from the context you gave. Reading the given sentence naturally, and in complete isolation, I would naturally have tended towards the negative connotation, but of course, if your wider context makes the contrary clearer, then we needed to know that!
Like me, NS OED notes that it is 'often mlildly derogative'
First of all, apologies for the spelling mistake in my 'Ask asker' note above; I'm afraid the light's going in here, and with my bad eyes, I can't see too well.
'Precocious' isn't necessarily negative in EN, though it usually conveys the idea of 'earlier than something should be' — but nowadays, when applied to children, it is generally likely to be somewhat pejorative (there are other words that we might use if we wanted to be positive).
Yes, I do think it can be properly applied as an adjective qualifying 'articles' — just as we can talk about an artist's 'juvenile works', though there we don't necessarily mean they are infantile, but simple created at an early age!
Clearly I'm not the FR native speaker around here, and I am well aware that 'précoce' is often used with a non-negative connotation, as in 'vin précoce', for example; but I have also seen it used enough in contexts where I felt it was intended negatively for me to feel that it probably CAN be used with the same pejorative connotation as in EN — though of course I stand to be corrected in this by all our FNS colleagues!
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 4 hrs (2007-05-07 21:19:00 GMT) Post-grading
--------------------------------------------------
Right, now that's something you didn't make at all clear from the context you gave. Reading the given sentence naturally, and in complete isolation, I would naturally have tended towards the negative connotation, but of course, if your wider context makes the contrary clearer, then we needed to know that!
Like me, NS OED notes that it is 'often mlildly derogative'
Note from asker:
| thanks for all the semantic explanations, interesting indeed, my apology, like Stephanie said I feel in this case it should be positive, later refereing to the talent of the girl in my text... though I know precoce en francais are both positive and negative, I always tend to translate with anothher word that is not transparent...deformation scolaire !! |
| desolee pour les fautes, moi aussi j y vois plus rien... |
Peer comment(s):
| agree |
Johannes Gleim
: both précoce and precocious are translated into German as "frühreif", which may have positive and negative value depending on the context. http://dict.leo.org/frde?lang=de&lp=frde&search=frühreif
1 hr
|
|
Thanks, Johannes! I think all that perhaps changes is how LIKELY it is to be negative, and I'm afraid in EN, whenever I hear it applied to a child, I usually ASSUME it's negative, unless there''s other info. to refute that.
|
Discussion
Though
i feel precoce would define mainly people (or medical situation...) but not to define objects like articles
What do you reckon ?? This is very interesting..