marielameche

Hi

In fact, even though one can change tenses in some cases to adapt the translation to the right audience, or for some other particular reasons, I think the right way to translate here was to keep the infinitive. And actually, NAR kept the infinitive for the first verb, (to be bribed --> pour être corrompus), and the second verb should be in the infinitive too (or work hard --> ou bosser dur)

Secondly one cannot translate
"English students are too obsessed with being cool and mature"
by
"Les étudiants Anglais sont trop obsédés à être cool et mature "

because you say "obséder par" and not "obséder à"
In this case, you can't really use the verb anyway, unless you write something like
'Les étudiants anglais sont trop obsédés par le fait d'être cool et mature' which doesn't sound French anyway
Here, it's better to turn the verb into a noun, like:
"Les étudiants anglais ont trop pour obsession d'être cool et mature"

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lenfini

Yeah, that's all fine and dandy but I'm still simply trying to understand French grammar and not to produce a verbatim translation. Thanks anyway, though.

By the way, you shouldn't use archaic expressions such as "pray tell" (learned English by reading Jane Austen, did you?). They wouldn't say that at even the finest halls of Oxford.

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John

NAR

lenfini

Yes, your written English is very good for a non-native speaker.
Why won't you ever thank anyone in any of your posts? Is it because you're "simply the best"?
Regards,

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John

NAR