# FR: translating English's gender neutral "singular they"



## orlando09

In modern English you can sometimes use "they" to mean "he or she" -- for example : someone phoned just now when I was working on an important letter - I didn't answer - I thought 'if it's important they will call back"

Would it be natural in French to say "si c'est important ils rapelleront" or is this nuance not really used in French?

In my opinion, the above example doesn't sound too bad - do you agree? However I would be doubtful about some other cases where the "singular" usage is even more explicit, like:

---My boss said someone called into the office while I was out asking for me -- he said he didn't know what they wanted

or

---If a customer wants to pay with a credit card, they can do so if they buy more than 20 euros of goods


Any thoughts about how French works in these kinds of cases? Perhaps one can get round it in French by being scrupulous about using the usual grammatical gender --- eg. une personne a téléphone, elle disait que...  or quelqu'un est arrivé ce matin, je ne sais pas ce qu'il voulait...

*Moderator note:* Multiple threads merged to create this one. If you are interested in the use of the singular _they_ in English, see EN: they, them, their - as singular pronouns for unknown or unspecified gender.


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## Guilhem 128

As far as your first two examples, it would work just fine to use "ils" as a generic pronoun. But as for "If a customer wants to pay with a credit card, they can do so if they buy more than 20 euros of goods" we would naturally use "il". That's because French - like many other languages - is a gender-biased language. Yes, if you're talking about a crowd made up of 99 women and a single men you'll use "ils".
   In this example: "une personne a appelé, elle a dit que" the pronoun in the second clause must agree with the noun in the first one in number and in gender...


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## Lacuzon

Hi,



> Perhaps one can get round it in French by being scrupulous about using the usual grammatical gender


Yes, it will be the case.

As far as it be, we would never use plural pronoun when refering to singular one.

At worst, we would use ça (it) but it is very poor french level.


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## jann

orlando09 said:


> Perhaps one can get round it in French by being scrupulous about using the usual grammatical gender --- eg. une personne a téléphone, elle disait que...  or quelqu'un est arrivé ce matin, je ne sais pas ce qu'il voulait...


You have hit the nail on the head... but in fact, I would re-characterize it:  It's not that French is "scrupulous."  It's that grammatical gender agreement is fundamental to French!! 

If the antecedent is _un client_, then the pronoun is _il_... not because the _client_ was biologically of the male sex, but because the grammatical gender of the word _client _is masculine.  (And you will probably use _une cliente_ if the person is a woman!)

If you're trying to avoid disclosing information about the individual, you use a noun that is independent of biological sex (e.g., _une personne, _which is always grammatically feminine, or _quelqu'un_, which is always grammatically masculine).  And then all your pronouns refer back to the grammatical gender of that noun, which serves as the antecedent.

In English, the lack of a neutral third person singular for humans ("it" being unacceptable) can be problematic in situations where you're trying to be general (or politically correct), where you don't know whether the person was a man or a woman, etc.  And so in modern speech, we end up giving these biological-gender issues priority, so to speak, over the concept of singular vs. plural... and we substitute "they" as if it were singular.  Indeed, it is widely understood to be singular in these situations (though condemned by some grammarians).  

French simply doesn't have this problem, because the choice of pronoun depends on grammatical gender instead of biological sex.


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## TitTornade

orlando09 said:


> In modern English you can sometimes use "they" to mean "he or she" -- for example : someone phoned just now when I was working on an important letter - I didn't answer - I thought 'if it's important they will call back"
> 
> Would it be natural in French to say "si c'est important ils rapelleront" or is this nuance not really used in French?


 
Hi,
My mom says exactly this, when the phone ring and she can't answer : "si c'est important, ils rappeleront" !! I now understand she wants to mean that the person will call back, in a neutral way.


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## Coq

You could simply say: 
_Si c'est important, on rappellera. _

They say that... On dit que...
Please look up the many uses of "on", it might make your life easier.


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## Maître Capello

TitTornade said:


> My mom says exactly this, when the phone ring and she can't answer : "si c'est important, ils rappeleront"


As far as I'm concerned, I would *never* use _ils_ in such a case; I would use a workaround as per your suggestion, Orlando:

_Si c'est important, *la personne* rappellera._

But if you have some more context as in your three examples, the question doesn't really arise as explained by Jann:

_*Quelqu'un* a essayé de m'appeler… Si c'est important, *il* rappellera._


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## orlando09

Thanks for the replies. Titornade, it's interesting your mom says it that way; I thought it sounded feasible to me (though Maître Capello's comment noted, and I agree what you say makes sense according to strict grammar). I wonder if another possible reason why some people might use that form for that precise context is because the person phoning might have been a representative of a firm or organisation. I know that quelqu'un is grammatically masculine, that's why I said you could probably get round the issue by awareness of correct grammatical gender rules, like une personne -- elle and quelqu'un - il. This may be one rare example of where French's sometimes rather arbitrary gender designations are actually useful, then, as they provide clarity here where in English we have the cumbersome "he or she" of the "singular they" ("which some grammarians condemn"). I personally quite like the singular they though, I find it useful, and one can't always worry about what some grammarians say (for example some would probably still claim you should not split an infinitive in English, despite the fact this is a pointless rule made up by some grammarian centuries ago due to the fact one could not split an infinitive in Latin, and these days respected sources say it is OK to freely split infinitives as you like). I think using "on" as another alternative makes good sense.
[ ... ]


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## Fred_C

orlando09 said:


> . I wonder if another possible reason why some people might use that form for that precise context is because the person phoning might have been a representative of a firm or organisation.



Hi,
To me, this is the only reason why you can use "ils". The choice of "ils" in "ils rappelleront" cannot be motivated by a hesitation between "il" and "elle" in my opinion.


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## TitTornade

Maître Capello said:


> _*Quelqu'un* a essayé de m'appeler… Si c'est important, *il* rappellera._


 
Hi,
Oh ! It sounds weird to me to replace "quelqu'un" by "il"... I would have said "ça" (in a colloquial way) in the place of "il"...


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## Pandar

I feel like "on" generally replaces the English "they" quite handily in most cases, since "they" is essentially being used as a gender-neutral third person singular pronoun, which is exactly what "on" is.  Then again, I feel like "on" would really only be used if you hadn't already specified a subject like "client."

So with your last example, I think you could translate that as: 
"On pourrait payer avec une carte de crédit si son achat dépassait 20 euros."  

But if you started with "client" your later pronouns would have to agree with the gender of "client"


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## Maître Capello

TitTornade said:


> Oh ! It sounds weird to me to replace "quelqu'un" by "il"... I would have said "ça" (in a colloquial way) in the place of "il"...


 _Ça_ would be both extremely colloquial and disdainful! It would be as if you used _it_ in English…


Pandar said:


> I feel like "on" generally replaces the English "they" quite handily in most cases, since "they" is essentially being used as a gender-neutral third person singular pronoun, which is exactly what "on" is.


I fully agree for the first sentence (_*On* a essayé de m'appeler_ ), but, for some reason, I wouldn't use _on_ for the second (_Si c'est important, *on* rappellera_)… maybe because it is just too impersonal in this case…


> The again, I feel like "on" would really only be used if you hadn't already specified a subject like "client."


 I think we all agree about this.


> So with your last example, I think you could translate that as:
> "On pourrait payer avec une carte de crédit si son achat dépassait 20 euros."


You should avoid the possessive _son_ here because it doesn't correlate well with _on_. However, you could simply use the definite article instead:_ *On* peut payer avec une carte de crédit si *l'*achat dépasse 20 euros._


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## EpicBacon

In English, it is extremely common to use "they" when you don't know the gender of the person you're talking about.

E.g. "My teacher is terrible!" "What did they do?"

99.9999% sure this is grammatically inaccurate, but native speakers say this all the time because it's a lot easier than saying "he or she". 

Does French have an equivalent to this?


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## Michelvar

Hi, 

no, because, most of the time, as we use "un article" in front of the noun, we know the gender. In your example, the sentence would be "mon prof est nul!" or "ma prof est nulle!", so the gender is known.

But when we don't know, we use the masculine form, witch is the neutral form in French.


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## petit1

No, we haven't. We can't use the plural for one person. But for your example (and when  the noun used for the person is masculine or feminine -Ex.le voisin / la voisine etc)  there would be no hesitation because the sentence would be :
" Mon prof ...." or "Ma prof ..." so the answer would naturally be either "He" or "She" . Sometimes we can't know.


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## EpicBacon

All right, maybe I didn't give the best example.

What if someone said "Quelqu'un a changé ma vie aujourd'hui" (Someone changed my life today)

In English, a common response would be "What did they do?"

In French, would you say "Qu'est-ce qu'il a fait ?" Even though we have no way of knowing if the individual is male a female? (I've read that quelqu'une exists, but is obsolete.


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## archijacq

Les réponses seraient simplement différentes, pour éviter la castration pure et simple, la confusion des genres, et le changement de sexe... :
"En quoi ?" 
"Comment ?"
"Par quel moyen ?"
"De quelle manière ?"
"Qu'est-ce que cette personne a fait ?"


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## Michelvar

I agree with archijacq, we would find a way to get round the problem. And, if not, we would use masculine, which is the neutral form in French.


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## franc 91

You have examples like - la personne qui a fait ça  ....which although it is in the feminine, can mean somebody of either sex, or you can use adjectives, which when spoken don't automatically indicate the gender - l'intéressé(e), or you can use the plural (as in they) - les résponsables, ceux qui ont fait ça..... etc


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## MysterPedanticke

Am I the only one left who still uses the 3rd person sing. gender-neutral pronoun "one" in English? (I do understand that it is considered rather posh by our American English-speaking cousins --- but then they probably think "posh" is too posh a word as well!)
And is the French "on" going out of fashion in the same way? I am happy to continue using it as long as it is understood (even if not by one-and-all!).


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## petit1

"On" is not out of fashion, *MysterPedanticke* . Of course we can't use it in all contexts, for instance it would be impossible to say: "Qu'est-ce qu'*on* a fait ?" in the situations described in posts 13 and 16. 
But in the 1st post it is perfectly possible to say : "_si c'est important ils rapelleront_" or "_Si c'est vraiment important *on nous rappellera* _."


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