Sentence confusion

Vasantha S.A2Kwiziq community member

Sentence confusion

Hello! I'm confused about the sentence: "Pour que tous les habitants comprennent, le roi François Ier décide en 1539 .... " If the English translation takes place in the past tense (the king François decided), why does the phrase seem to be conjugated in the present tense? Why not "le roi François Ier a décidé?" Merci!

This question relates to:French interactive reading exercise "Comment est née la langue française ?"

Reading B1, Politics, History & Economics, Language & Education, Listening or Seeing B2

Asked 1 year ago
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Maarten K.C1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor Correct answer

Vasantha, English typically uses past tense in historical writing whereas French historical writing uses present tense primarily. 

Hence, the original French document uses present tense throughout, but that would not ‘sound’ right in English, and the translator has appropriately applied the tense shift during translation. 

See discussion in link :

 https://www.lawlessfrench.com/grammar/historical-tenses/

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Vasantha S. asked:View original

Sentence confusion

Hello! I'm confused about the sentence: "Pour que tous les habitants comprennent, le roi François Ier décide en 1539 .... " If the English translation takes place in the past tense (the king François decided), why does the phrase seem to be conjugated in the present tense? Why not "le roi François Ier a décidé?" Merci!

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