French Translation for “given”

Question

“étant donné l’humidité de cette pièce”. Please send me a link to a lesson on the conjugation of “etant donné”. Thanks.

Accepted Answer

Hi Judy,
This is an interesting one and there is a lot of polemic on the internet regarding this subject.
My gut feeling was that it should be 'étant donné' in every case as it is a fixed expression like 'vu, excepté, y compris' which remain invariable.
The consensus is that if it precedes the noun it is invariable but that you can agree in number if placed after the noun ( which is rare).
This is the opinion of the Académie Française
https://www.dictionnaire-academie.fr/article/QDL063
Hope this helps!

Answer

I have a question instead of an answer. Don't you just make sure that "donné" agrees in number and gender with the subject of the sentence? Example - Etant données l'occasion de le faire, elles l'ont fait.

Answer

Yes. étant donné cannot in itself be conjugated.

Answer

It's optional whether to agree étant donné. But if you choose to make the agreement it will be with the thing that is given. So either:Étant donné l'occasion de le faire, elles l'ont fait.orÉtant donnée l'occasion de le faire, elles l'ont fait.https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/donn%C3%A9