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# what — English to French

How English *what* is translated into French in open, checked parallel texts: 2 translations with example sentences.

What it means: [what in the Elamur Dictionary](https://dictionary.elamur.ai/free/en/english/what/).

Sentence pairs counted, by form: what (273 708), whats (5). By style: everyday 18 990 · literary 751 · biblical 965 · parliamentary 96 673 · legal and administrative 9 253 · UN documents 147 081.

## quel

Used about 71 937 times in the texts (everyday ≈ 2 769 · literary ≈ 47 · biblical ≈ 101 · parliamentary ≈ 4 028 · legal and administrative ≈ 1 957 · UN documents ≈ 63 035). Forms: quel, quelles.

- **What** movie did you see?
  **Quel** film avez-vous vu ?
  ([Tatoeba](https://tatoeba.org/) · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by CK and sacredceltic · checked, community translation · [\#3820908](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/3820908) [\#1090629](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/1090629))

- **What** radiance surrounds the forge!
  **Quel** rayonnement dans l'enclume!
  ([Project Gutenberg books (Verne, Hugo, Maupassant and their translators)](https://www.gutenberg.org/) · Project Gutenberg, public domain · checked, professional translation · hugo les miserables, row 19931)

- But he turned and rebuked them, “You don’t know of **what** kind of spirit you are.
  Jésus se tourna vers eux, et les réprimanda, disant: Vous ne savez de **quel** esprit vous êtes animés.
  ([World English Bible and Louis Segond 1910](https://ebible.org/) · World English Bible; Louis Segond 1910; public domain, eBible.org · checked, professional translation · LUK 9:55)

- **What** do these studies say?
  **Quelles** sont les conclusions de ces études?
  ([Europarl v8](https://www.statmt.org/europarl/) · Source: European Parliament proceedings, Europarl v8 (Koehn 2005) via OPUS (Tiedemann 2012) · checked, professional translation · segment 1852806)

- If yes, **what** are the conditions?
  Dans l'affirmative, à **quelles** conditions?
  ([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 5618251)

## nécessaire

Used about 9 343 times in the texts (parliamentary ≈ 4 028 · legal and administrative ≈ 2 313 · UN documents ≈ 3 002).

- Lastly, **what** is really needed to achieve these objectives is a commitment to enhance cooperation among Member States in the field of justice.
  Enfin, pour réaliser ces objectifs, il est vraiment **nécessaire** de renforcer réellement la coopération entre les États membres dans le domaine juridique.
  ([Europarl v8](https://www.statmt.org/europarl/) · Source: European Parliament proceedings, Europarl v8 (Koehn 2005) via OPUS (Tiedemann 2012) · checked, professional translation · segment 349815)

- In accordance with the principle of proportionality set out in that Article, this Regulation does not go beyond **what** is necessary to achieve that objective.
  Conformément au principe de proportionnalité tel qu'énoncé audit article, le présent règlement n'excède pas ce qui est **nécessaire** pour atteindre cet objectif.
  ([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 4404375)

- However, one needs to see **what** principles can be drawn from the example of cluster munitions.
  Il est néanmoins **nécessaire** de déterminer quels principes peuvent être dégagés des armes à sousmunitions.
  ([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 13399208)

- Contrary to **what** Mr Brok said, the choice is not between the constitution and Mr Verhofstadt; we should have a vision of a constitution and Verhofstadt.
  Contrairement à ce qu'affirme M. Brok, il n'est pas **nécessaire** de choisir entre la constitution et M. Verhofstadt; notre vision devrait inclure les deux.
  ([Europarl v8](https://www.statmt.org/europarl/) · Source: European Parliament proceedings, Europarl v8 (Koehn 2005) via OPUS (Tiedemann 2012) · checked, professional translation · segment 894827)

- This Regulation does not go beyond **what** is necessary in order to achieve the objective pursued, in accordance with Article 5(4) of the Treaty on European Union.
  Le présent règlement n’excède pas ce qui est **nécessaire** pour atteindre cet objectif, conformément à l’article 5, paragraphe 4, du traité sur l’Union européenne.
  ([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 4088980)

## More sentences

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

- **What**'s bothering you?
  Qu'est-ce qui te tracasse ?
  ([Tatoeba](https://tatoeba.org/) · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by CK and Blabla · checked, community translation · [\#2234071](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/2234071) [\#2999484](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/2999484))

- You don't even know **what** I did.
  Tu ne sais même pas ce que j'ai fait.
  ([Tatoeba](https://tatoeba.org/) · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by CK and Aiji · checked, community translation · [\#3424289](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/3424289) [\#8305732](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/8305732))

- I know **what** they want me to do.
  Je sais ce qu'ils veulent que je fasse.
  ([Tatoeba](https://tatoeba.org/) · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by CK and sacredceltic · checked, community translation · [\#2376323](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/2376323) [\#2385946](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/2385946))

## 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=what).


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.