Tech2 Vocab, Glossary etc

For the moment it will exist rather in list form, but I will give it some structure later!

Qualifications / Equivalences

• Brevet = ‘O’ Levels  (Ordinary)
• BAC = ‘A’ Levels (Advanced)
• BAC+ 2 = Higher National Diploma or University Foundation Programme
• BAC + 3 / Licence = degree  (Bachelor of Arts or of Sciences  BA or BSc)
• BAC + 4 = Postgraduate Diploma
• BAC + 5 = Masters
• Alternat = a ‘sandwich’ programme (Bread = education  – filling = workplace employment)
• 1 x Km  = 5/8 of a mile

Vocabulary / spelling.

• Musculation =  body-building
• Mecanics (Fr) = mechanics (Eng)
• CentER = American   /  CentRE = English
• REaliZe and OrganiZation = American
• RealiSe and organiSation = English
•  French ‘formation’ = English ‘training ‘ or ‘education and training’
• Formation in English means an arrangement of components which are in close proximity to one another: ‘The red Arrows air display team flies in close formation‘…
• Impact: instantaneous result of one thing upon another
  Implications: the implied longer-run consequences of some action
• Société does not mean société: it means ‘company’ or ‘firm’ or even the ‘business organisation’

Grammar / expression.

• Not ‘I HAVE 32 years’ (J’ai 32…)  but ‘I AM 32’ or I ‘AM 32 years old’. 
• We don’t say ‘during three years’ (Rather: ‘For [a period of] three years’ / ‘over the last three years’) or ‘since three years’…. but I could say : ‘Since 2005 I have been teaching here at IUT Colmar’.
• ‘Techno-Commercial’ does not exist as a directly translatable term ona word for word basis: we have to explain it. A ‘Technical Representative’ perhaps if you are selling technologies  or perhaps even ‘I’m a Commercial Salesman for Technology business’  / ‘I’m in Commercial Technology Sales‘

Conventions.

• We capitalise the first letter of each principal word in a title: e.g. Winston Churchill wrote: ‘A History of the English-speaking Peoples’…
• A ‘city’ for the English (or the Americans) is usually a very large conurbation indeed, usually one which also has a cathedral. Occasionally one finds a place of very much smaller size (like Truro in England or St Davids in Wales) which have a very modest population: but they DO have a cathedral and are recognised as cities!  Normally we go from hamlet –> village  –> town  –> city
• FAIRE = to make or to DO.  Most of the time in English it is DO rather than MAKE – we tend to use MAKE in a very literal, hands-on, construction sense: ‘PSA MAKE cars’… when it comes to your degree, you DO it rather than MAKE it.

Abbreviations.

• URL: Universal Resource Locator