Sheila

Beware! You are almost sure to fall into traps. I lived and worked in
this industry in francophone Switzerland for over 30 years, so have an
excellent knowledge of the terminology, but this varies much according
to where your text is intended. Just as one example, soldering is
usually 'soudage' in Belgium, Switzerland, Canada (I think) and even in
some provincial regions of France, but in most of France, it is 'brasage
tendre'. Illogically, a soldering machine is usually 'une machine à
souder' everywhere, although some purists use 'une machine à braser',
although I've never seen what would be the logical extension 'une
machine à braser tendrement' :-)

There is a terrific lot of jargon used in French, often regional (some
terms are different even between the neighbouring cantons of Switzerland
(e.g Vaud, Neuchâtel and Genève). This is probably because French is
such a highly structured language with a formal acceptance of neologisms
and is hence so poor in technical language that someone feels the need
of a new word and invents it (or uses an old word in a new context) and
it tends to mushroom around him and the same happens elsewhere, but with
a different term.

To answer your question, I do not believe any reliable dictionary exists
which would be a sure and reliable source for you. The ones I have seen
are all pretty worthless if you wish your work to be used everywhere and
they usually omit even accepted jargon. There is no substitute other
than to find a bilingual someone who has worked in the industry
extensively throughout francophonie.

Meilleures salutations

Brian

Sabine McGowan wrote:
>
> Hello all!
>
> I am working on an English to French translation and I was wondering if
> anyone could recommend me a good -appropriate to the industry- dictionary.
>
> Thanks in advance for your help.
>
> Sabine
>
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