Need some help French > English

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EducatorPermalink Reply by George Hunt on September 25, 2012 at 1:22am

Although I am a native English speaker  I may not see all the (not so many) mistakes  and there may be better ways to express what you are trying to say

But I will make a first attempt....

 

“Hello,

 

Thank you for all yours   your replies.

 

I am going to be in Sydney one week before the beginning of the internship, I think it that will be enough to find a flat. Moreover, I know now where I need to focus my researches.Also I know already the areas to focus on (you mean the parts of town where you can look for appartments?)

 

Please find attached/enclosed (I do not really know which one is better -enclosed I think) my internship agreement. Could you fill it up in, sign it and send  return it  to me back please? I shall give you others other  documents later, because I need this internship agreement in order to start administrative procedures.

 

As I told you in my first e-mail, I am also here to improve my English. In fact Actually , I am not really fluent in it, on the one hand my reading and my hearing understanding of dialogue  are really good, on the other hand I need to practice my speaking. Moreover, I am not thoroughly familiar with the  Australian’s accent.

 

Anyway, thank you for your help. I think I will be in touch with you when I will be have  arrived in Sydney. I am going to need your help about administrative stuff (details better?) because I am coming (come?) alone in  to Australia on my own.

 

Thank you in advance.

 

,”

I didn't correct your punctuation but I think it needs  a bit of work.

 

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on September 25, 2012 at 4:17am

Hi Jérôme --

In addition to George's comments, a couple of other minor things:

- in my variety of (British) English at least, the usual word order is "I already know...": it sounds a bit strange to put "already" after the verb.

- it's unusual to use "enclosed" for an e-mail, so I would actually use "attached" here (maybe George didn't notice the bit where you said it was an e-mail?)

- again, in my variety of English, and this may differ in other usage, saying "I shall give you..." sounds a bit forceful. It sounds like you're saying "I'll be giving you these things, whether you like it or not". I would personally say "I will be giving you..." or  "I'll be giving you...". In a fairly informal e-mail, it's OK to use contractions.

- again, this may depend from speaker to speaker, but I wouldn't personally say "I'm not really fluent in it" but simply "I'm not really fluent". I think languages fit into a category of word that aren't readily referred to by "it" (a bit like certain types of noun in French: people will often say "Paris, je connais" rather than "Paris, je le/la connais"). However, this could vary from speaker to speaker, I guess.

- to me, it sounds a more natural to say "my reading and understanding of spoken English" rather than using "dialogue" here: in English, "dialogue" usually implies some kind of *structured* or pre-planned interaction, rather than just any old spoken instance of the language, which I think is what you mean here.

- "stuff", as George hints at, is somewhat informal. If you don't know the person very well, I would go for Goerge's option of "details".

For what it's worth, I didn't personally find the punctuation terribly bad for the purposes of an informal e-mail.

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EducatorPermalink Reply by George Hunt on September 25, 2012 at 11:43am

 it's unusual to use "enclosed" for an e-mail, so I would actually use "attached" here (maybe George didn't notice the bit where you said it was an e-mail?)

 

That's true I did think it was  a letter we were talking about.

I must be living in the past!

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Permalink Reply by Jackie Cann on September 26, 2012 at 8:55pm

Hi Jerome - sorry I haven't put the accents on your name but I can't seem to do them on this forum.  Anyway, I just wanted to say one little thing - that in English the verb 'to practice' becomes practise with an 's' when it's a verb.  So 'I need to practise my speaking'. As you wrote this yesterday you may already have sent your e-mail, but it my help you in the future.  Just out of interest, in America it's the other way around!  Good luck!

 

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EducatorPermalink Reply by George Hunt on September 27, 2012 at 1:03am

Not sure you are right about "practise"
When I type "practise my cricket" into Google I get over 10 times less (560/6,000)returns than for "practice my cricket".
They would have to have been overwhelmingly authored by non-American English speakers I think.
Maybe it is one of those rules that is no longer followed?

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on September 27, 2012 at 7:27am

Hi George / Jackie --

I think this is basically a US/UK difference. UK speakers would tend to write "practise" as the verb whereas US speakers would tend to write "practice".

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Permalink Reply by Jérôme X on October 2, 2012 at 9:27pm

Thanks you everybody for your help ! It's really cool. :)

I sent this mail yesterday without mistake I think so. I am pretty tired so I keep writting in french.

Merci également pour tous vos conseils en anglais. Je pensais néanmoins avoir plus de fautes sur cet e-mail, donc je suis en quelque sorte fier de ce que j'ai fait. Ahah !

Bref, merci encore pour votre aide. ;)

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