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French terms for common electrical/engineering words ??

Has anyone seen a list or source of English to French translations of common electrical and/or engineering terms?? I am now living in North Africa (Tunisia) which is primarily Arabic and French speaking, and although I'm picking up some conversational (and Taxicab) French, my friends here don't know much about electronics!

I'm teaching robotics and beginning some electronics here (In an English-speaking International School), but I'm doing quite a bit of consulting and fixing of infrastructure stuff. For example I am just installing a new stage lighting / dimmer system. So I am talking quite a bit to the maintenance people, and having difficulties which you can imagine.

So, any pointers you may have would be helpful.

It Would Be Nice if there was an equivalent list for Audio/Recording stuff. Like Mixer, Line Level, Balanced Line, Recording Level, Equalization etc.

But right now I'm struggling with the Interrupter (Switch), Disjoincter? (Circuit Breaker), Puissance (?? Voltage or Current??) etc. The online translators that do well with, "I am from Vermont in the United States", and "I am happy to be a long way from Texas", bomb on electrical terms.

Otherwise this is a great era to be Out There, with DigiKey 12 days away, and you guys to ask questions of!

Thanks!

Regards, Terry King ...On The Mediterranean in Carthage snipped-for-privacy@terryking.us snipped-for-privacy@acst.intl.tn

Reply to
terry
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I can't help you with the words, but some formal material in regular old French (books or even a class) would probably be helpful.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Posting from Google?  See http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/
Reply to
Tim Wescott

Hello Tim,

It's for marine stuff but contains electrical words and you could ask the author listed for the electrical translations:

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It may be best to buy a little booklet. Also, you could ask the folks on the French electronics newsgroup: fr.sci.electronique

It's ok over there to ask in English and indicate that you can read answers in French, explaining your situation like you did here. They should really know where to find a suitable dictionary since many of them do not speak English too well but are confronted with data sheets in English all day long. The publishing company "Langenscheidt" carries lots of specialty dictionaries between European languages so even a trip to a large book store in Tounis might help. Should be a short drive from Carthage.

And here I thought the Romans always claimed they had destroyed it...

Regards, Joerg

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Reply to
Joerg

Hello Terry,

a écrit dans le message de news: snipped-for-privacy@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com...

Don't have such a list. As said by others myabe a book may help.

Maybe you can try with:

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with the following steps:

  1. Enter your text in the "Texte" area (up to 150 words)

  1. Select translation ("Français vers Anglais" or "Anglais vers Français")

  2. Select dictionary Electronique

That may help.

Switch = Interrupteur

Circuit Breaker = Disjoncteur

Puissance (?? Voltage or Current??)

Puissance = Power Voltage = Tension Current = Courant, Intensité

See above

-- Christian - Grenoble

Reply to
Christian HOSTELET

Cool. Can you get ahold of a French-English English-French technical dictionary? I see some used for < $10, but shipping to Tunisia is more than that. Might not be 100% on electronics terms, but certainly better than nothing. You could probably figure out the more specialized stuff out by googling native French-language sites.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com
Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

Hello Christian,

My favorite is "retro eclairage" for back light. It sounds so much nicer. And when you guys talk about a power supply and say "alimentation" I always become hungry.

Regards, Joerg

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Reply to
Joerg

Thanks so much, Guys! Great pointers....

Joerg, The sailing dictionary is VERY helpful on a lot of things... (And, yes, the Romans did a VERY complete job of destroying Carthage, as the Emperor promised. But after only a hundred years or so, they rebuilt it, in a grand style, and there's a lot of that left, all over the country here. See:

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Spehro, I just looked at Amazon for "English-French technical dictionary". Yikes! The first one is $260 ! I'm looking for used ones there; I should really buy one if I can find a decent used one...

Christian, Thanks for the immediate translations! And... Voila! I didn't KNOW about the dictionary CHOICE in Lycos, and it's very good, when set as you suggest to "electronique".

I think I have good solutions both short and long-term.

...But I will NOT be attempting this in Arabic...

Regards, Terry King ...On The Mediterranean in Carthage snipped-for-privacy@terryking.us snipped-for-privacy@acst.intl.tn

Reply to
terry

Hello Terry,

Thanks for the pics. I didn't know the Romans built circular docks for their war ships. Pretty cool. The sad thing is that they pretty much razed all their forests to build all these ships and the Italians are still paying the environmental price.

Regards, Joerg

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Reply to
Joerg

Resistor = le Resisteur Capacitor = le Condensateur Inductor = le Inducteur Transistor = le Transisteur Transformer = le Transformateur

etc.

Good Luck! Rich

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Reply to
Rich Grise, but drunk

Heh. Once I was reading the ingredients of some Asian Ramen, and they called the noodles "alimentary paste".

I ate it anyway. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

Hello Rich,

So then, l'ordinateur = ordinator?

Cheers, Joerg

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Reply to
Joerg

"Les substance intelligente du monde Anglo".....

Ken

Reply to
Ken Taylor

Perhaps this could be of some help also:

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--
Sent using 100% recycled electrons.
Reply to
Giorgos Savvas

Rich Grise, but drunk a écrit :

Hello, things are not that easy in french, simply using the "eur" desinance is not the answer. Historical/language-political questions break this beautiful scheme. The traps : Resistor : in correct (teacher) french is ...résistor, its property "résistance" (measured in Ohms). Inductor=inductance, self(inductance) Capacitor= condensateur with property "capacité" Transistor=transistor (it came from USA, remember)

Greetings Peter

Reply to
pom

The best ever English-French-English dictionnary for any technical term is made by the Quebec Office of French Language and is available for free here:

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The website itself is in French, but it's quite easy to understand that the first combobox at the top left is for source language, the second is for destination language and the edit box is for the word you want translated. Keep in mind this is for "terminology", hence for technical words only but NOT for every day words. For those you have

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Hope this helps Cheers Olivier Sannier

Reply to
OBones

I looked it up - more like DISordinator! ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

Hello Peter,

But it was a close race with Dr.Mataré in Paris:

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The correct French word in those days was "transistron". But Westinghouse closed the Paris lab since they believed that there was no market for the transistor. I almost spilled my coffee when I read that one for the first time.

Regards, Joerg

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Reply to
Joerg

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