Translating part of the name of a street?

Matthew C.C1Kwiziq community member

Translating part of the name of a street?

I’m very confused by this. It would seem very odd to me to if, when talking in English about a street in France, someone would translate “J’habite rue Pasteur.” to “I live on Pasteur Street.” or “I live on Pasteur Road.”. I would expect that they would either leave “rue Pasteur” as it is and say “I live on rue Pasteur.” or, perhaps more likely, captalize the “rue” and say “I live on Rue Pasteur.”. Similarly, I would not expect someone who lived in, say, London, when speaking French, to say something like “J’habite rue Baker.”, I’d expect something more like “J’habite Baker Street.”. In all cases, I’d expect the full name of the street (“rue Pasteur”, “Baker Street”, etc.) to be preserved in translation. I am often shocked at how much people are willing to mangle names of all kinds when using a language different to that from which the name originated, though Kwiziq usually manages to avoid doing so. A quick look at the French and English Wikipedia articles for some notable streets seems to back up my initial thoughts. I was wondering whether to report this as an issue, but I am not quite confident enough to say that Kwiziq is definitely wrong here.
Asked 7 years ago
AurélieNative French expert teacher in KwiziqCorrect answer
Bonjour Matthew ! I've had a look, and indeed I agree with you. I'm afraid that my eagerness to translate terms for clarity got in the way of colloquialism in that lesson, but I agree that in usage, people (including myself) would keep the original terms. I therefore decided to update the lesson accordingly :) Merci beaucoup de votre feedback et à bientôt !
Matthew C. asked:

Translating part of the name of a street?

I’m very confused by this. It would seem very odd to me to if, when talking in English about a street in France, someone would translate “J’habite rue Pasteur.” to “I live on Pasteur Street.” or “I live on Pasteur Road.”. I would expect that they would either leave “rue Pasteur” as it is and say “I live on rue Pasteur.” or, perhaps more likely, captalize the “rue” and say “I live on Rue Pasteur.”. Similarly, I would not expect someone who lived in, say, London, when speaking French, to say something like “J’habite rue Baker.”, I’d expect something more like “J’habite Baker Street.”. In all cases, I’d expect the full name of the street (“rue Pasteur”, “Baker Street”, etc.) to be preserved in translation. I am often shocked at how much people are willing to mangle names of all kinds when using a language different to that from which the name originated, though Kwiziq usually manages to avoid doing so. A quick look at the French and English Wikipedia articles for some notable streets seems to back up my initial thoughts. I was wondering whether to report this as an issue, but I am not quite confident enough to say that Kwiziq is definitely wrong here.

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