Phrasal verbs (Germanic) and intellectual words (French – Latin)

Phrasal verbs (Germanic) and intellectual words (French – Latin)
November 29, 2010 | Posted by profanglais

English vocabulary is a mixture of simple verb-preposition phrases and more intellectual Latin words. French speakers can easily recognise Latin words, and use them in their conversations. But the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ way of saying things is more difficult. Remember that generally, short word combinations are more informal and friendly, and that if you use only words of latin origin, you may give the impression of being a little ‘pompous’ or ‘pretentious’!

Try to find the Latin word that has a similar meaning to each of the phrasal verbs given.
1
set up conduct/perform
carry out reverse
get better improve/ameliorate
back up establish
2
drop in (on) visit
get it decelerate
slow down abandon
give up comprehend
3
carry on exclude
carry out continue
make fun of ridicule/mock
leave out perform/conduct
4
look up calculate
turn down interrupt
work out refuse
butt in consult
5
speed up penetrate
break into tolerate
put up with accelerate
throw up vomit

How do I say go in, come down, go ahead etc?:
Translating phrasal verbs into French

English makes wide use of phrasal verbs, in which a preposition or adverb is \'fused\' to a verb1. In some cases, they consist of a verb which indicates a manner of movement plus a preposition that indicates direction (cf fly out, saunter in). In other cases, it is more difficult to separate the verb and preposition into distinct components of meaning (cf mess up, get round to, go in for). The first step in translating phrasal verbs is to determine which type we are dealing with. Note that some phrasal verbs can be of both types: go ahead can mean both \'move forwards\' in a literal sense plus \'continue\' in a more abstract sense.
Verb indicating manner plus preposition indicating direction

In these cases, English encodes manner in the verb and direction in the preposition:
he walked
ran
flew
manner out
in
past
direction

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For many common cases, French encodes the manner and direction the other way round to English: direction is encoded in the verb and manner is encoded in another expression. So to translate these phrasal verbs into French, we need to:

* find an appropriate verb to translate direction;
* find an appropriate expression to translate manner (and decide if this is necessary).