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This question was closed without grading. Reason: Answer found elsewhere
French to English translations [PRO] Social Sciences - Real Estate
French term or phrase:collectivités
The meaning is contrasted with "particuliers" on a website for installing solar panels. Examples of collectivites are "immeubles a appartements, piscines publics, maisons de repos", so basically buildings larger than private homes, which are used by larger numbers of people, but aren't necessarily public buildings. Also descibed in one section as "grands systemes" - referring to the fact that larger buildings will naturally require a larger system to be installed.
An additional constraint comes from the fact that this is a website, and so although when the term appears in freeflowing text i can be wordy, it also appears in a few menu items/tabs and so I am limited for length.
The only thing i can come up with, having looked through the glossary, is "groups", but that falls quite short of what i'm looking for.
Having considered this at some length, I have gone with a "get out" option of "large installations". When needed, I can specify the exact types of building this refers to, but this seems to be the only way I can think of to cover all the possibilities that "collectivites" encompasses, and to stick within the space restriction. Thanks to everyone for their indepth discussion on this one - I knew it wasn't going to be easy!
wfarkas (X)
Canada
"Non-residential Facilities" Revisited
04:14 Mar 29, 2010
Unfortunately there is no single umbrella term that would cover "collectivités" in the sense of "immeubles à appartements, piscines publics, maisons de repos, etc." Here are some definitions you may wish to consider in the subject context: 1) Commercial Property= Property used for the sale of goods and/or services. (Living accommodations such as apartments, hotels, and motels are classified as Commercial Property. 2) Community Services Property= property used for the well being of the community. 3) Recreation & Entertainment Property= Property used by groups for recreation, amusement, or entertainment. 4) Public/Institutional Property= property used to provide services to the general public. 5) Industrial Property = property used for the production and fabrication of durable and nondurable man-made goods.
Drawing from the fact that the website also uses "grands systemes", perhaps something along the lines of "larger projects/large-scale projects" - i.e. skirt round the problem completely!
Hi Margaret, I'm just throwing out some ideas, the difficulties and options here, the concept in general, thinking out loud, in the hopes of getting closer to a compound word or group of words that has all the different meanings Wendy needs. When I think of apartment buildings, for example, I think of "managers" - the people who run them, the same for retirement homes etc., the people who are likely to be involved in decisions regarding energy sources. But that is just my particular train of thought ... These are just ideas, for discussion purposes. I hope that explains my post. I really enjoy the discussion thread feature because I think it's possible to be a bit more free with our ideas, than committing to a definite solution to the translation.
Un groupe, une société. Circonscription administrative qui a ses propres responsabilités.(Quillet 1975) So local authorities proposed by Phil Goddard seems fine in the context.
Try as I might I just can't imagine that one word in EN is going to cover apartments, rest homes, swimming pools etc as efficiently as "collectivités" does. This has a US slant but I think it's possible to be a bit bold as you translate "particulier" , maybe using "single family homes" (emphasis on the building type) then all you need (!) is a word or 2 to describe communal facilities/buildings. If you want to keep it as the people rather than the buildings, you could say "home owners" for particuliers" and then again, all you need (!) is a snappy word (or 2, hopefully not more than 2!) for government managers, building managers, facilities managers etc...
its deefinitely used there (have to rush off so can't find the refs), but eg: Les solutions ESE sont régulièrement sélectionnées pour leur qualité et leur performance par des particuliers mais aussi par des collectivités (immeubles, piscines communales, maisons de repos...) et des entreprises (chaînes d'hôtels, stations de lavage de voitures...). I think it can mean either, depending on how i want to angle it.
I can't find the word "collectivités" on the website, but it sounds like your original explanation might have been wrong and you actually meant the people who own the buildings, not the buildings themselves. Is that right?
I'd already been debating whether to post the website, but I suppose its in the public domain so there isn't any issue: www.ese-solar.com (the source files i've been given are very slightly different from the live site, but nothing that should affect thsi question)
For further guidance: the website is from the solar panel manufacturer, providing information for customers about its product range, how solar energy works etc. The menu structure goes something like this: Our products > Solar heating > pour le particulier/pour le collectivite.
So once you're past this bit, I can use wordier phrases to describe what it means, but I need to make sure that this initial menu is clear enough to direct people to the right place. It is fairly directly contrasted here with "particulier".
One other term that they use is "grandes installations", although since i´m trying to instil a bit of consistency in this job, i´ll probably use the same target term for all
Explanation: Now that we have the full context, it's clear that this refers to the bodies which operate these facilities, rather than the buildings themselves. You could say "communities", but I think "local authorities" is more appropriate in this context.
peer agreement (net): +1
