# EN: qu'elle pensait avoir évité



## Nagisa

Bonsoir,

Comment pourrez-t-on traduire en anglais:

" La France subit aussi la crise qu'elle pensait avoir évité."

Instinctivement : " France suffer too the crisis that she thought ....has avoided ? "
 
merci


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## marie7771

Je pense que c'est:
France also suffers the crisis that it thought it has avoided.
Mais je ne suis pas sûr.


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## Dzienne

En fait, exactement, la phrase veut dire en Anglais: France suffers also the crisis that it thought to have avoided.

Mais pour mes oreilles anglophones, je préfère: France also suffers the crisis that it had thought it could avoid.


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## ce que est est

I would suggest:  France, too (as well, also), suffers *from* the crisis she thought to have avoided.


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## Dzienne

ce que est est said:


> I would suggest:  France, too (as well, also), suffers *from* the crisis she thought to have avoided.



True, that is much better!


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## XIII56

So you can say both _she _or _it _when you speak about France ?


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## ce que est est

XIII56 said:


> So you can say both _she _or _it _when you speak about France ?




Yea; it's a little old-fashioned / registre soutenu,  but you will hear it from time to time.


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## Fred_C

Oui, mais il s'agit d'un mécanisme volontaire de personnification.
Je suppose que le pronom "she" marche avec tous les pays.
(Même ceux dont le nom en français est masculin : "Portugal", "Canada", "Brazil"...)


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## XIII56

ce que est est said:


> Yea; it's a little old-fashioned / registre soutenu,  but you will hear it from time to time.


Which one is a little old-fashioned ? she ?



Fred_C said:


> Oui, mais il s'agit d'un mécanisme volontaire de personnification.
> Je suppose que le pronom "she" marche avec tous les pays.
> (Même ceux dont le nom en français est masculin : "Portugal", "Canada", "Brazil"...)


Pour la France ça ne m'étonne pas (on a notre Marianne) mais ça m'intrigue plus pour certains pays, comme les États-Unis par exemple souvent personnifiés par l'Oncle Sam ...


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## Dzienne

It's true, we do use personification in English.  Grammatically, if something is not a person, then it's an it.  But men often refer to their boats, spaceships or cars (or whatever they like to tinker with!) as "she".  If you are not sure of the gender of an infant, you can refer to him or her as "she".  At my work, we ladies refer to our fussy printer as "he", sorry gentlemen!  The Statue of Liberty is a she.  She's French, though, so it makes perfect sense.  

So for this sentence, you can use "she", and as Fred_C explained, it is personification.  But you can also say "it" and that works, too.


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## branchsnapper

We would usually use the present continuous and say "France is suffering from" in English.


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## Dzienne

branchsnapper said:


> We would usually use the present continuous and say "France is suffering from" in English.



It's called the present progressive, also.  You can, but then you would be using the verb "to be", which denotes passive voice and it would make it sound weaker and wordier. I think simply "suffers" sounds better in this case.


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## branchsnapper

Yes the tense has more than one name, but no it has nothing to do with the passive. Present simple sentences in French are very often best translated by present continuous in English. We lack the context here, but in 99% of cases it would be the natural translation. To do otherwise would suggest habit.

In a current newspaper you would certainly read something like "France is also suffering from the crisis she thought she had avoided".


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## h0urglass

France also suffers the crisis that she thought to have avoided.


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## Dzienne

h0urglass said:


> France also suffers the crisis that she thought to have avoided.


 Parfait !


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## Dzienne

branchsnapper said:


> Present simple sentences in French are very often best translated by present continuous in English. To do otherwise would suggest habit.



Present Indicative can also be used to state a factual event in English that occurs at the moment.  This is also true in French.  I stand by my original suggestions.



branchsnapper said:


> In a current newspaper you would certainly read something like "France is also suffering from the crisis she thought she had avoided".



True.


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## branchsnapper

Yes, it can, Dzienne, but it seldom does outside of captions etc. I advise you to think carefully about when you would say such a thing.

Besides which "that she thought to have avoided" is not a natural English expression either. [...]


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## Dzienne

branchsnapper said:


> Yes, it can, Dzienne, but it seldom does outside of captions etc. I advise you to think carefully about when you would say such a thing.


 I did, thanks. 



branchsnapper said:


> Besides which "that she thought to have avoided" is not a natural English expression either.[...]


 I'd love to debate the definition of what English is and isn't, but you'd have to start another thread, since it would be OT here.

I will say "that she thought to have avoided" is not necessarily every day speech, but it is still perfectly grammatically acceptable, and it works for the sentence.


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## branchsnapper

Google search results.

"She thought to have avoided" O Hits outside this thread.
"She thought she had avoided" 6 hits.
"He thought he had avoided" 1860 hits.
"He thought to have avoided" 4 hits, but two are quotes of the first.

We all make mistakes, but since you are trying to help people with your advice, at least graciously admit the mistakes.


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## Angle O'Phial

Totally agree. #18 sounds very wrong. I'd go even farther and say that the personification of France as 'she' would sound more than a bit odd in a newspaper article. So that would leave the rather prosaic, but correct:

France is also suffering from the crisis it thought it had avoided.


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## dandanaz

I do not suggest using "she" unless you are trying to sound poetic or dramatic.  Using "it" for a country is much more common in everyday language.

Also, you might use "presumed" instead of "thought;" it adds the sense that the judgment was premature and not necessarily correct.

I would say:

"France (also suffers / is also suffering) from the crisis it presumed to have (avoided/averted)."

You do not necessarily have to use the progressive here unless that is what you mean; the sentence still sounds natural with "France also suffers," but it sounds like a broader (more general) claim.

Also consider using "averted" instead of "avoided."  "Avoid" is more common overall, but I think it is more idiomatic to say "avert a crisis" than "avoid a crisis."


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## baker589

h0urglass said:


> France also suffers the crisis that she thought to have avoided.


 - sounds strange.  Definitely wouldn't be used in England, but I don't know about America though.

_France is also suffering from the crisis it thought it had avoided._

She sounds old fashioned, I don't think most people would say she.

Although dandanaz is right about averted, that sounds more like France took action to prevent the crisis, whereas avoided could mean she that she did or didn't do something to try to prevent it - depends on the context.


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## dandanaz

> Although dandanaz is right about averted, that sounds more like France took action to prevent the crisis, whereas avoided could mean she that she did or didn't do something to try to prevent it - depends on the context.



baker makes a very good point; I agree that whether to use avert or avoid depends on the context.

But my more important point (which was deleted) was about the problem of "thought to have avoided."  I think this sounds wrong only because of the verb being used.  "Think"/"thought" does not often combine with an infinitive, but there are other appropriate verbs that do.


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## branchsnapper

Actually, to be fair, one of the situations where we would use the present simple for this kind of sentence would be in a newspaper headline/subheadline. I don't think it has anything to do with it being "broader". 

I kind of agree about the personification of France but I thought picking two holes in a "perfect" sentence was enough, and people might still choose to write in that old-fashioned kind of style.


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