Last summer I wanted to do something productive for my team (EVOLUTION 2626) since I had nothing else going on. I saw that they’re were next to zero pieces of documentation that were written in french. Since my team had a large influx of students with zero prior experiences in FRC, I decided to create a document that contained a large amount of knowledge of mechanisms commonly used in FRC, their advantages, disadvantages and more.
I believe the document could be beneficial for any french speaking teams but unfortunately, I am still a student and learning of FRC, there is bound to be mistakes and incoherence in it. Nevertheless, I hope that someone will find it useful
This is awesome! It’s always good to see resources being made to make FRC more accessible to the wider community.
Would you be interested in doing a French translation for the FRC Mechanism Encylopedia?
I am trying to get it translated into as many languages as possible so that it can reach and help as many teams as possible.
Not as a criticism—how do you feel about the very large number of English loanwords used?
One of the things that holds me back with regard to technical communications in French is my general language education didn’t focus on technical terminology…but did instill the idea that one should not just borrow an English word when a perfectly good French one exists. It was apparent then, as now, that this is a complex issue that is acceptable in some contexts and not others, and that I’m not completely aware of the subtleties. I’m curious whether you have a specific approach, and whether this in your experience typifies modern French-language usage.
(The one time I needed to explain a technical issue concerning FRC inspection in French, many years ago, I think I did an adequate job, but I was certainly using circumlocution to try to speak accurately and without resort to English terms. I never was sure if that came off as unnecessarily pedantic, or appropriately formal in the inspection context.)
Since I’m located in the province of Quebec Canada, using English loanwords is something that is very common because we are a French speaking province in an English speaking country. When I started my first year in FRC I was under the assumption that we would be using only French word, the metric system, and everything else, but it was far from that. I practically had to rewire my brain . I completely agree with you that it is a complex problem. Personally, I would really like to use the right term in French but unfortunately, in a sense, it is really difficult because it is not a language that is really prevalent in the world of FRC.
