French term
Morocco
il y a eu un incendie, ou: il y avait un incendie
il y avait un incendie à la prison, et il en a profité pour s'échapper.
Merci
| 4 +1 | 1/ 'there has been a fire' 2/ 'there was a fire' |
Peter Field
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Jan 8, 2021 00:42: writeaway changed "Language pair" from "French to English" to "French"
Jan 8, 2021 00:43: writeaway changed "Field (write-in)" from "confusing" to "question about verb tenses"
Jan 8, 2021 05:27: Barbara Carrara changed "Level" from "PRO" to "Non-PRO"
Non-PRO (3): Conor McAuley, Melanie Kathan, Barbara Carrara
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Responses
United Kingdom
21 yrs as a Translator/Editor from FR>EN
Native in: English (Variant: UK)
Works in: French to English
1/ 'there has been a fire' 2/ 'there was a fire'
'Il y avait un incendie à la prison, et il en a profité pour s'échapper' translates as 'There was a fire [burning] at the prison and he took advantage of it to escape.' Here the initial verb is in the imperfect tense implying that the fire in question was still burning when he presumably profited from the resultant confusion to make his escape.
| neutral |
Barbara Carrara
: This is a French monolingual question
3 hrs
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| agree |
Sonia Belfiglio
5 hrs
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| neutral |
writeaway
: The question uses "ou = or " not "and/et" so it appears the asker wants to know the difference, which makes it a French monolingual question
10 hrs
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Discussion
- Il y a eu un incendie dans le magasin: l'incendie est survenu dans un passé proche ou lointain. Comme la phrase s'arrête là, elle semble ne constituer qu'un simple constat.
- Il y avait un incendie à la prison, et il en a profité pour s'échapper : le détenu s'est échappé pendant l'incendie ("Il y avait" suggère la simultanéité de l'évasion).
- Il y a eu un incendie à la prison et il en a profité pour s'échapper: le détenu s'est échappé à la suite/en conséquence de/à la faveur de l'incendie. ("Il y a eu" suggère une antériorité à l'évasion et de là, l'introduit comme un fait conséquent plutôt que concomitant - à mes yeux en tout cas!).