French Lesson Invest Advice is chapter 33 of Hands Free Business French.
This is an important sentence to know as you’ll be able to advise your team.
- “a mixed picture”: « une situation mitigée »
Example sentence
“I wouldn’t invest in this company if I were you. Their 2013 financial report is a mixed picture.”
« Je n’investirais pas dans cette entreprise si j’étais vous. Leur rapport financier 2013 montre une situation mitigée. »
Breakdown of French Lesson Invest Advice.
- “TO INVEST”: « INVESTIR »
- “I would invest”: « j’investirais »
- “I would not invest”: « je n’investirais pas »
This is “TO INVEST”: « INVESTIR », in the conditional mode. We will see this mode in the grammar point.
- “If I were you”: « si j’étais toi », or « si j’étais vous » (formal)
- “a financial report”: « un rapport financier »
French Lesson Quick tip 1: “reporting”
You only need to say « le reporting » with a very French accent. It’s a transparent word because we just borrowed it.
Quick tip 2: “to be a mixed picture”: « montrer une situation mitigée »
Why is it so different? It’s a set phrase. It’s an idiomatic, specific expression in each language. So, what happens is the main verb changes totally. This happens often with idiomatic expressions. Idiomatic expressions are expressions that are specific to a language. The more used they are, the more distorted with time they become. This is why basic verbs in any language, like “TO BE”: « ÉTRE »; “TO HAVE”: « AVOIR » are so irregular in both languages. With idiomatic expressions and set phrases, you cannot go with literal translations, by definition. You have to be careful with the verb, learn the entire expression by heart; otherwise if you learn just bits and pieces, and it just won’t work at all.
As usual, the metaphors will be more practical in English and more abstract in French. Generally speaking, English is a very practical language, and French is a very abstract language. This is partly why the English uses a lot more verbs and nouns, and the French does the opposite, using more nouns than verbs.
For example, “it costs me too much to put up with the situation”: « le coût de cette situation est trop important pour moi ». This example is perfect because it’s got two things : “it costs me” which is a verb, « le coût » a noun, and it also has a prepositional verb “to put up with”, which is made of a very vivid image “to put up with”. The translation in French is « trop important », “too important”, a more abstract concept.
French Grammar point: Conditional
Conditional is a mode, a set of tenses. Why is it used? It expresses an uncertain future event that is bound to a condition. It’s used when the English uses “would” or “could” or another modal verb, for uncertain events. So we are using here the conditional present, not the conditional past.
How does it work? [Note: the audio is slightly inaccurate here] You basically take the root from future, and add the endings from imparfait. For example, the future of « INVESTIR » is « investirai » at the first person, its root is « investir- », to which you add the ending of imparfait, « -ais ». Here it is:
INVESTIR – TO INVEST (conditional present)
| J’investir-ais | I would invest |
| Tu investir-ais | You would invest |
| Il/Elle investir-ait | He/She would invest |
| Nous investir-ions | We would invest |
| Vous investir-iez | You would invest |
| Ils/Elles investir-aient | They would invest |
PRENDRE – TO TAKE (conditional present)
| Je prendr-ais | I would take |
| Tu prendr-ais | You would take |
| Il/Elle prendr-ait | He/She would take |
| Nous prendr-ions | We would take |
| Vous prendr-iez | You would take |
| Ils/Elles prendr-aient | They would take |
Do not mix it up with the future. There is an extra “s” compared to the future. This is actually a very common mistake among natives. They will write the verb with an “s” when thinking of future, but the “s” only belongs to the conditional. You know better than them, don’t mix them up.
All these modal verbs “WOULD”, “COULD”, translate into conditional in French, but sometimes you need to add a verb like « pouvoir » or « devoir » in the conditional tense, and the second verb is not conjugated, as usual, it stays in the infinitive. For example:
“I would take”: « je prendrais »
“I could take”: « je pourrais prendre ».
« pourrais » is « POUVOIR » in the conditional, and then you have « PRENDRE » in the infinitive.
“I should take”: « je devrais prendre ».
« devrais » is « DEVOIR » in conditional present, and then you have « PRENDRE » in the infinitive.
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