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# était — French to English

How French *était* is translated into English in open, checked parallel texts: 4 translations with example sentences.

The Elamur Dictionary has no French section yet; the English translations below link to their meanings where it has them.

Sentence pairs counted, by form: était (549 313). By style: everyday 10 679 · literary 1 692 · biblical 1 531 · parliamentary 31 187 · legal and administrative 37 600 · UN documents 466 624.

## was

Used about 374 423 times in the texts (everyday ≈ 8 454 · literary ≈ 1 199 · biblical ≈ 1 180 · parliamentary ≈ 22 741 · legal and administrative ≈ 29 767 · UN documents ≈ 311 083).

- C'**était** la cousine de Tom.
  That **was** Tom's cousin.
  ([Tatoeba](https://tatoeba.org/) · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by GB3 and CK · checked, community translation · [\#2891916](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/2891916) [\#6865669](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/6865669))

- Il **était** alors dix heures et demie.
  It **was** now half-past ten.
  ([Project Gutenberg books (Verne, Hugo, Maupassant and their translators)](https://www.gutenberg.org/) · Project Gutenberg, public domain · checked, professional translation · verne 80 days, row 321)

- et Ira de Jaïr **était** ministre d’état de David.
  and Ira the Jairite **was** chief minister to David.
  ([World English Bible and Louis Segond 1910](https://ebible.org/) · World English Bible; Louis Segond 1910; public domain, eBible.org · checked, professional translation · 2SA 20:26)

- C’**était** un mouvement inspiré par des valeurs.
  It **was** a movement inspired by values.
  ([Europarl v8](https://www.statmt.org/europarl/) · Source: European Parliament proceedings, Europarl v8 (Koehn 2005) via OPUS (Tiedemann 2012) · checked, professional translation · segment 716630)

- Le sirop ainsi séparé **était** appelé sirop couvert.
  The syrup thus produced **was** known as ‘covered’ syrup.
  ([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 4578821)

## had

Used about 50 706 times in the texts (everyday ≈ 222 · literary ≈ 247 · biblical ≈ 64 · legal and administrative ≈ 1 567 · UN documents ≈ 48 607).

- Ce qui est arrivé n'**était** pas de la faute de Tom.
  What **had** happened wasn't Tom's fault.
  ([Tatoeba](https://tatoeba.org/) · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by rene1596 and CK · checked, community translation · [\#1040491](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/1040491) [\#1198984](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/1198984))

- L'égout **était** sans fond.
  The sewer **had** no bottom.
  ([Project Gutenberg books (Verne, Hugo, Maupassant and their translators)](https://www.gutenberg.org/) · Project Gutenberg, public domain · checked, professional translation · hugo les miserables, row 27410)

- Environ trois heures plus tard, sa femme entra, sans savoir ce qui **était** arrivé.
  About three hours later, his wife, not knowing what **had** happened, came in.
  ([World English Bible and Louis Segond 1910](https://ebible.org/) · World English Bible; Louis Segond 1910; public domain, eBible.org · checked, professional translation · ACT 5:7)

- À cette époque, elle avait révisé son estimation des coûts globaux du projet, qui **était** passée à \[730-760\] millions de NOK.
  At that time, Finnfjord **had** revised its total cost estimate to NOK \[730-760\] million.
  ([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 5670179)

- Ce taux **était** de 74,3 % au 30 novembre 2009.
  At the same time last year, 74.3 per cent of the current year’s assessment **had** been received.
  ([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 23281253)

## one

Used about 9 849 times in the texts (biblical ≈ 128 · UN documents ≈ 9 721). Meaning: [one in the Elamur Dictionary](https://dictionary.elamur.ai/free/en/english/one/).

- Il mesura la muraille, et trouva cent quarante-quatre coudées, mesure d’homme, qui **était** celle de l’ange.
  Its wall is **one** hundred forty-four cubits, by the measure of a man, that is, of an angel.
  ([World English Bible and Louis Segond 1910](https://ebible.org/) · World English Bible; Louis Segond 1910; public domain, eBible.org · checked, professional translation · REV 21:17)

- 275. Une délégation a posé des questions sur le rôle des ONG dans le pays : est-ce que leur nombre **était** en augmentation?
  **One** delegation asked about the role of NGOs in the country: Were they increasing in number?
  ([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 3854525)

- d’autres, qu’Élie **était** apparu; et d’autres, qu’un des anciens prophètes **était** ressuscité.
  and by some that Elijah had appeared, and by others that **one** of the old prophets had risen again.
  ([World English Bible and Louis Segond 1910](https://ebible.org/) · World English Bible; Louis Segond 1910; public domain, eBible.org · checked, professional translation · LUK 9:8)

- L’un d’eux, Caïphe, qui **était** souverain sacrificateur cette année-là, leur dit: Vous n’y entendez rien;
  But a certain **one** of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all,
  ([World English Bible and Louis Segond 1910](https://ebible.org/) · World English Bible; Louis Segond 1910; public domain, eBible.org · checked, professional translation · JOH 11:49)

- C’**était** du temps d’Assuérus, de cet Assuérus qui régnait depuis l’Inde jusqu’en Éthiopie sur cent vingt-sept provinces;
  Now in the days of Ahasuerus (this is Ahasuerus who reigned from India even to Ethiopia, over **one** hundred twenty-seven provinces),
  ([World English Bible and Louis Segond 1910](https://ebible.org/) · World English Bible; Louis Segond 1910; public domain, eBible.org · checked, professional translation · EST 1:1)

## man

Used about 35 times in the texts (literary ≈ 35). Meaning: [man in the Elamur Dictionary](https://dictionary.elamur.ai/free/en/english/man/).

- C'**était** un anglais qui revenait des Indes.
  An English India-**man**, homeward bound.
  ([Project Gutenberg books (Verne, Hugo, Maupassant and their translators)](https://www.gutenberg.org/) · Project Gutenberg, public domain · checked, professional translation · maupassant pierre jean, row 1049)

## More sentences

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

- Je veux faire comme si ça n'**était** jamais arrivé.
  I want to pretend it never happened.
  ([Tatoeba](https://tatoeba.org/) · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by sacredceltic and CK · checked, community translation · [\#2018818](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/2018818) [\#2470489](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/2470489))

- Le navire n'**était** pas en ordre de bataille.
  The ship wasn't ready for battle.
  ([Tatoeba](https://tatoeba.org/) · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by sacredceltic and CK · checked, community translation · [\#1963172](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/1963172) [\#1965494](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/1965494))

- Jim m'a écrit la semaine dernière et m'a dit qu'il **était** revenu il y a deux mois.
  Jim wrote to me last week and said that he'd been back for two months.
  ([Tatoeba](https://tatoeba.org/) · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by Maxence and tabular · checked, community translation · [\#5170526](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/5170526) [\#7701647](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/7701647))

## Grammar

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

## 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=fr-en&word=%C3%A9tait).


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.