This site uses cookies.
Some of these cookies are essential to the operation of the site,
while others help to improve your experience by providing insights into how the site is being used.
For more information, please see the ProZ.com privacy policy.
English translation: drives (online shopping service)
18:32 Oct 6, 2018
French to English translations [PRO] Bus/Financial - Retail
French term or phrase:drives
Context: Le Groupement XXX est composé notamment de 755 Super XXX, 64 Hyper XXX, 6 Marché XX, 343 XXX Express et 393 YYY soit 1561 magasins au 31 décembre 2017 ainsi que de 704 drives présents sur l’ensemble du territoire et notamment dans les zones les moins peuplées. Le réseau est composé pour une part importante de supermarchés dont la surface de vente est comprise entre 1 000 et 4 000 m2 et les études menées auprès des consommateurs montrent que celles-ci sont aujourd’hui les surfaces les plus attractives pour les consommateurs.
Thanks for your suggestion, B, but in all fairness, it was Gillian who first suggested that term, and all credit should go to her, should she choose to post an answer to that effect.
I withdrew my answer "Click & Collect" because I saw it had already been suggested in the Discussion. However, I think that it should have been posted by Tony. As always, the translation used depends upon the target readership and the purpose of the translation. However, using the term "drive" for an anglophone audience would be as bad as failing to translate the Franglais "un relooking", "un parking" or "un brushing".
By the way, as you are not located in France, you might not be aware that the other terms used 'express', 'marché' etc. are arguably proper names, and might have to be retained, but that each of them refers to a particular category of store, different sizes, management schemes, etc. For example, for several common 'enseignes' including Carrefour and SuperU, an 'Express' is a smallish neighbourhood convenience store, often run by an independent franchisee. And so on for the other sizes of stores... "Hyper XXX" often designates a larger store (though sometimes the notion of a 'hypermarket' is a little optimistic compared to what you'd find in the US or UK!), and very often one that is actually owned and run by the parent group, rather than merely being franchized.
Were this to be part of the street address of a store, than i would tend to agree with your arguments; but here, it is clearly discussing retailing in a technical sort of way, where the term is being used to refer to one particular type of outlet, and as such, i think it is vital to 'localize' the term.
I think your objection to 'click-and-collect' is unfounded; unlike MacDo drive-thrus, the supermarket type ones ALWAYS invariably involve ordering online — there is no mechanism for doing otherwise for the ordering part; if you just regard it as 'collect your own shopping' , then basically that just means 'going shopping at the store'!
OK I used the wrong term - it's not proprietary. However, it's a name (albeit not a proper noun per se) tagged onto some proprietary supermarkets' names. Thus in my travels in France I have seen "Intermarché Drive" and "Super-U Drive" and others, signposted along the roads. For this simple reason and the fact that it is so widely used, I don't think it should be "translated". Yes, used as a single word it's unnatural in English but I say that this wide usage really makes it a fixture. Put it this way: an English reader of the asker's translated text faced with a "translation" such as "Click and Collect" decides to find out where there is, for example, a Super-U Click and Collect near to Avignon, so googles and finds nothing.....
Tip: Search for English results only. You can specify your search language in Preferences No results found for "Super-U click and collect"+"Avignon".
Since the word is English in the first place, why change it?
I could see at least one good reason - just because it's something sounding English used in French, it doesn't make it "real" English - like say "tennisman"?
Same as there are quite a number of French words given a shifted or completely wrong meaning when used in English, like "actualité"?
Fair enough, if 'click-and-collect' has become generalized (perhaps like 'hoover' for a vacuum cleaner), then it is certainly a more catchy and concise way of expressing it, much more in line with the spirit of 'drive' as used here in FR.
First of all, it is not a "proper noun" of any kind — it is just a noun like any other... one sees 'parking' in France, but this would sound odd if it were used in EN and we were to say 'a parking', for example instead of 'a car-park'. Likewise, even though it is an EN word, we would be looked at very oddly if we were to say "I'm wearing my baskets and new pull to go to a foot match" Like many EN words used "incorrectly" in Franglais, IMHO they SHOULD be translated where possible; in this instance, it would be tempting to use 'drive-thru', except that this is not the format they use (there isn't usually any 'through' aspect, and the goods will have been pre-ordered).
Good suggestion and am happy to go with this, although a quick google just brought up numerous major stores who use the term "click and collect". A near typo I just corrected - "cluck and collect"!
Whether or not it's proprietary it's a 'name' used by at least 2 supermarket chains. This year I saw it on an Intermarché site in Portugal. Since the word is English in the first place, why change it? If you change it to "drive-thru" or "click & collect" or some other name used elsewhere, the reader may well expect that this "translation" to be the supermarket's actual name for the 704 outlets in question; I really think this is a fixture the more I consider it.
Point taken, but the trouble with using something like "Click and Collect" is that, even if it may not be actually "proprietary", it is certain store-specific, and other stores use their own variants, which it clearly would be impractical to list!
I think if it's important the only way would be to express it as something like 'online shopping service for customer collection' — perhaps that could work for the first time it is mentioned...
An irritating trend these days is actually now to have some 'onmine ordering only' stores (e.g. Chronodrive), and also, to locate the 'drive' store for a certain store separately, often remotely, from the main store. Now while I am not averse to using the 'drive' service to save a bit of time for some items, there are some in-store items that are not available to select online, and there are also other items, like fruit and veg etc. that I want to choose myself; so I order my 'drive' stuff, whizz round the store for the rest, and then pick up the 'drive' order as I leave... or not! There was a funny article recently where they were advertising a 'drive' service ... for people on foot! I somehow doubt they will advertize it as a 'Walk'...
Automatic update in 00:
Answers
15 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): +2
drives (online shopping service)
Explanation: Drives are supermarkets where you can order online and collect your shopping at you leisure.