Comments on: Help me translate a short French passage

Question: Help me translate a short French passage

molybdenum — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 21:26:31 -0800

French translation subtlety: I'm translating a document on human rights defenders, and am not quite sure of a particular passage. Francophile assistance requested.

Here's the passage (full text here, if you're interested):

"En effet, selon [...], M. Dobian Assingar, [...] auraient subi des menaces telles que des tentatives d'arrestation ou des attaques perpétrées par les forces de sécurité. De plus, la maison d'un défenseur aurait été encerclée par des tanks des forces armées tchadiennes."

My question is the use of that conditional perfect tense ("auraient subi des menaces", "aurait été encerclée"). Am I right in thinking that in this context, it conveys probability or allegation? For instance, I'm translating the last sentence as, "In addition, one of the defender's homes was allegedly encircled by tanks from the Chadian Armed Forces." Or is the tense just an artifact of the quasi-legal register the document is written in, and I should just translate it as, "was encircled by tanks"?

I'm volunteering to help a legal defense fund, so I'd rather get the subtlety correct.

By: bluefrog

bluefrog — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 21:49:13 -0800

The conditional is used here to reinforce the fact that these events took place according to ("selon") someone. In fact, in French, it's pretty common (in a formal text) to use the conditional when using "Selon" in that manner

As long as you make sure to use "According to.." (for "selon"), you don't need to use "allegedly". It would in fact be redundant, since "according to" denotes an allegation. Simply use the simple past, as you suggest.

Hope this makes sense. Getting late here....

By: molybdenum

molybdenum — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 22:24:25 -0800

Exactly what I need to know. Thanks bluefrog!

By: altolinguistic

altolinguistic — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 03:20:09 -0800

Agree completely with bluefrog (I translate FR>EN for a living).

By: zouhair

zouhair — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:31:43 -0800

As a side note if you are into translation you may like Wordreference Forums.