USES OF ILS

[Wendy Akoth]

 

WHEN IS ILS USED TO REFER TO, IT  

[Neil Coffey]

Basically, ils tends to translate "they" because it refers to a plural (masculine) noun.

 

There are surely a handful of cases where it would end up being translated as "it" in English, because occasionally a French noun that is plural can be singular in English. So for example, the slightly bizarre word ahrres ("deposit") is plural in French but would tend to be singular in English.

 

It's not such a common case, though. You can basically think of ils as meaning "they".

[Wendy Akoth]

merci beaucoup

[yong leong]

Hi Neil, I thought "ahrres" means " an advance" in english, like earnest money in legal term.  Most hotels or Resort places want you to pay " an advance" (ahrres if  that is correct) in case you don't turn up, they often do this during the peak seasons, so they don't lose money when you don't turn up to check in.  You lose your (ahrres ) money if you don't turn up by certain time for check in and they give your room to somebody else.

    And I was told by a french lady that "la caution" is a deposit.  She said when you check in hotel they want you to pay a deposit and it's called "La caution"  I hope I am right.

[lauris]

I don't know the exact translations of both "caution" and "ahrres" but if it can help :

"arrhes" is indeed a amount of money you give in advance when you make a reservation somewhere (Wikipedia translates it by "Down payment");

"caution" is money that you give when you rent or borrow something as a guarantee, and that is given back to you at the end

[Ed la mouette]

In addition of what lauris says above, there is also un acompte. While les arrhes are kept by the vendor if the customer doesn't buy the product at last, un acompte will be given back to him if he decides to withdraw from the sale.

[fjhartnell]

An advance does not mean a deposit in UK English. British hotels might ask for a deposit. Lauris is correct. In the UK an advance is a part payment of your salary before it is due amongst other things.

[yong leong]

" If what is said is not what it meant then what should be done remain undone"  a famous scholar said this. He said language must be clear and precise.

    George Bernard Shaw was very subtle when he said " A dance is a vertical expression of a desire for a horizontal expression ".  GB Shaw said many witty and funny things.

     An Asian guy went to an Ozzie (australian) money changer and he got a little less than what he got yesterday so he asked the money changer why he was getting less than yesterday.

   The Ozzie guy with a heavy ozzie accent said "fluctuation" but the asian guy heard, "fuck you asian" and he said "fuck  you too".  I thought this joke was funny.

    So careful with your accent ok?

[Neil Coffey]

@yong -- yes, this is basically what "arrhes" and "caution" mean, but "deposit" can refer to either case in English.

 

So verser des arrhes basically means to pay some amount of money to secure a contract (e.g. a hotel booking as you say, but essentially any other similar situation).

 

And a caution, also called a "security deposit" in English,  would be the money you pay against damages etc  when renting a flat, gîte etc, and which you would ordinarily be paid back at the end of your stay/contract. This arrangement is more common in a gîte rental situation than at a hotel (where they just swipe your credit card at the start of the stay and the card is presumably authorised to take whatevr money if you break the chandeliers etc).