Elamur: [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [Parse](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/parse/) · [Dictionary](https://md.dictionary.elamur.ai/free/en/) · **Translate** · [Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [MCP](https://mcp.elamur.ai/) · [Groupants](https://md.groupants.elamur.ai/free/en/)

This page as HTML: <https://translate.elamur.ai/free/en/en-fr/began/>

# began — English to French

How English *began* is translated into French in open, checked parallel texts: 1 translation with example sentences.

The [Elamur Dictionary](https://dictionary.elamur.ai/free/en/english/) has no article on this word yet.

Sentence pairs counted, by form: began (33 866). By style: everyday 441 · literary 158 · biblical 172 · parliamentary 1 584 · legal and administrative 524 · UN documents 30 987.

## commencé

Used about 13 251 times in the texts (everyday ≈ 129 · parliamentary ≈ 693 · legal and administrative ≈ 164 · UN documents ≈ 12 266).

- I **began** to speak.
  J'ai **commencé** à parler.
  ([Tatoeba](https://tatoeba.org/) · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by cc\_neko and martin9 · checked, community translation · [\#1567177](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/1567177) [\#1432490](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/1432490))

- Mrs de Brún **began** by speaking Irish.
  Mme de Brún a **commencé** en s’exprimant en irlandais.
  ([Europarl v8](https://www.statmt.org/europarl/) · Source: European Parliament proceedings, Europarl v8 (Koehn 2005) via OPUS (Tiedemann 2012) · checked, professional translation · segment 834653)

- Germany and the bank **began** by summarising the underlying situation.
  L'Allemagne et la banque ont **commencé** par résumer la situation.
  ([DGT-TM v2021](https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/language-technology-resources/dgt-translation-memory_en) · Source: European Commission, DGT-TM (Steinberger et al. 2012), re-used under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU; the Commission keeps ownership of the data · checked, professional translation · segment 551901)

- UNFPA assistance to Brazil **began** in 1973.
  L &apos; assistance du FNUAP au Brésil a **commencé** en 1973.
  ([United Nations Parallel Corpus v1.0](https://conferences.unite.un.org/UNCorpus) · Source: United Nations, United Nations Parallel Corpus v1.0 (Ziemski, Junczys-Dowmunt and Pouliquen 2016) · checked, professional translation · segment 24401208)

- It **began** to drizzle.
  Il a **commencé** à bruiner.
  ([Tatoeba](https://tatoeba.org/) · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by AlanF\_US and lbdx · checked, community translation · [\#8315296](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/8315296) [\#8872515](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/8872515))

## More sentences

Sentence pairs with the word where no single translation was found: it may be translated by a phrase, or left out.

- She lost her way and on top of that it **began** to rain.
  Elle perdit son chemin, et pour comble de malchance, il se mit à pleuvoir.
  ([Tatoeba](https://tatoeba.org/) · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by CM and rene1596 · checked, community translation · [\#316019](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/316019) [\#1183950](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/1183950))

- When the long, hearty dinner was over, the guests **began** dancing and singing.
  Lorsque le long et consistant souper fut terminé, les invités se mirent à danser et à chanter.
  ([Tatoeba](https://tatoeba.org/) · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by Hybrid and sacredceltic · checked, community translation · [\#3759414](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/3759414) [\#3762210](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/3762210))

- Left alone, the little girl **began** to cry.
  Laissée seule, la petite fille se mit à pleurer.
  ([Tatoeba](https://tatoeba.org/) · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by CK and NomadSoul · checked, community translation · [\#27613](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/27613) [\#970670](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/970670))

## Grammar

Notes on grammar and translation on Mova: [English grammar](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/en/) · [French grammar](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/fr/) · [translating between English and French](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/translation/pairs/en-fr/) · [translating from English](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/translation/from-en/) · [translating into French](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/translation/into-fr/).

## About these examples

Translations are found by how often the two words stand in the same sentence pairs, and the highlighted words are matched automatically: both are approximate. Counts are estimated from a sample of each source. Every example names its source and licence. [Submit a better translation or example](https://md.translate.elamur.ai/free/en/submit/?pair=en-fr&word=began).


Every example is quoted under its source's licence and credited with it; the rest of the site is open under the Elamur Cosmic License.