Soin/soins

[Dwayne Roberts]

I want to make sure I understand the difference between soin and soins.

As I understand it, soins is medical or cosmetic (or possibly hygienic) care.

On the other hand, soin is the noun, care, as we would use the adverb, carefully.  For example, "He did the work with care".

It also means to care for something or somebody, but not in the medical sense.  "He took care of his sister's children."

And perhaps in the friendly or matter-of-taste way, too?  "She doesn't care for apples."

Is this correct?

[George Hunt]

That would be how I understand it -except for your last  example  "She doesn't care for apples."  which I would translate as "Elle n'aime pas les pommes" or  " Les pommes ne lui  plaisent pas"

I don't think this use of "care" in English  is very close in meaning to the  way you used it in the other examples.

[Chantal Savignat]

Hello

for the second one, it's ok. Soin is in the singular form : "Il fait son travail avec soin" or "Il prend soin de sa soeur". Just "she doen't care for apple" is not used with soin. We have a lot of expressions for this but none with "soin"

for the first one  :

médical care => ok "des soins médicaux". Soins is used in the plural form.

But for cosmetic (and hygienic) care, the two forms are used : des soins du visage / un soin du visage. There is a little difference.

des soins du visage = the whole care /  in general when we speaks about care.

un soin du visage = a package like "demake up - cream - parfume" or "day cream - parfume - make up"

very often the two forms are used without its real meaning.

[Vedas]

Hello,

just for the fun of it: 'le care' does exist in French too, it's related to the social and political concept only.

Chantal explained it nicely but I'll add some examples for the sake of it:

-prodiguer des soins : to attend to the patient/to care for the patient

-donner un soin is very close to traitement/ treatment

medical treatment: les soins medicaux

- être aux petits soins pour quelqu'un: to attend to sb's every need

- prendre soin de sa petite personne: to coddle oneself

- son premier soin fut de: his first concern was to