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CMSO
Association de Gestion de zone

Glossary entry

French term or phrase:

4.432 (dix milli)èmes

English translation:

4,432 ten-thousandths = 44.32 %

Added to glossary by Tony M
Dec 10, 2012 22:50
11 yrs ago
4 viewers *
French term

4.432 èmes

French to English Bus/Financial Finance (general) rental agreement
I am wondering how to render this mathematical expression in English. It appears in a rental agreement as follows:

La quote-part de participation des Locaux Loués aux charges générales de l'Immeuble est de 4.432 èmes.

It doesn't say anything else, so I am assuming it must mean 4.432 èmes of the total charges, so probably simply 'percent', but as I have never come across this sort of thing written in quite this way I thought I had better just check what would be a normal way of expressing such things in a rental agreement.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
Proposed translations (English)
2 +2 4,432 ten-thousandths = 44.32 %
Change log

Dec 29, 2012 21:41: Tony M Created KOG entry

Discussion

French2English (asker) Dec 11, 2012:
Actually, yes, of course, that's true..... all the other way around re points and commas...
Tony M Dec 11, 2012:
@ Asker Note it would not usually be a comma; the point is used as a thousands separator in FR; one would never mix a decimal with a fraction, if as you imply it ought to have been 'four point four three two -ths'
French2English (asker) Dec 11, 2012:
Thanks also.... to Phil and AllegroTrans...your answers appreciated and I will keep everyone posted as to what it turns out to be.
French2English (asker) Dec 11, 2012:
Tony, Thanks for your input. It is indeed written exactly as I reproduced, which, I agree, is unusual in French, because you'd at least expect a comma instead of a decimal point! I am just querying it with the client (well, assuming they respond) as it is clearly a very important number... but I do see what you mean in your explanation. Will get back with any response, for future reference.
Tony M Dec 11, 2012:
Careful here! If this were indeed meant to be 4 × 1/432 nd, I find it alarming in the extreme that it should be written as 4.432, which in FR quite clearly normally means 'four thousand, four hundred, and thirty-two'. The use of the . to mean × is not common outside scientific / mathematical circles.

I suspect that there is a minor typo in the source text, and it should have read 4,432 1/10,000 ths — these proportions are most usually expressed in 1/10,000 ths, in which case, of course, they can readily be converted to percentages.

You could just check the logic of this: 4,432/10,000 = 44.32%, i.e. nearly ½ the property — is that consistent with what your document is about? If it is only a broom cupboard in the Arche de la Défense, that seems unlikely, but if, on the other hand, it is one whole floor of a building, for example, then it could well be plausible.
philgoddard Dec 11, 2012:
I assume the "4." means "four".
We had a similar question recently. I said "four 432nds" (or whatever), but everyone else said it should be 4/432. If you calculate it as a percentage, it gives a very long recurring number.
AllegroTrans Dec 10, 2012:
"Normal" There's really no "normal" in English agreements - the rule simply being that the expression is clear and unambiguous. I realise that in France, proportions are often expressed in one thousandth parts, but this would be unusual in England. Personally I would opt for percentages.

Proposed translations

+2
8 hrs
French term (edited): 4.432 10.000 èmes
Selected

4,432 ten-thousandths = 44.32 %

I'm going to stick my neck out here and enter this as an answer, as I think it's actually quite important. I'd have given a higher confidence level, except that clearly I am having to make the assumption that there must be an error in the source text.

In 16 years of translating documents for real-estate professionals, I have only ever seen these sort of proportions expressed in terms of ten-thousandths — even though that figure seems absurd, it is necessary in order to give a fine enough resolution in all cases. In fact, I'm pretty sure this has even cropped up before in KudoZ.

There would be no logic at all in expressing it in even weirder -ths!

As you say, how to express it 'normally' in EN? Well, as this use of 1/10,000 is something of a relic of the distant past in dusty notaires' offices, and AFAIK we don't use quite the same way of expressing things in EN, I'd be in favour of using a more modern, and definitely more streamlined percentage; since we are working in 1/10,000 ths, it will never go to more than 2 decimal places, which remains perfectly manageable in most documents.

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Note added at 9 hrs (2012-12-11 08:35:08 GMT)
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See this early KudoZ:

http://www.proz.com/kudoz/french_to_english/real_estate/1853...

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Note added at 9 hrs (2012-12-11 08:38:32 GMT)
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And this one:

http://www.proz.com/kudoz/1091787

Note that both thousandths and ten-thousandths are used
Peer comment(s):
agree AllegroTrans : yes, I see the French as thousandths; % would be far better in EN/// yes of course TM, I didn't carry out a logic test before making that utterance, ten thousandths it is, and it would be extremely unusual to see this in an English rental agreement/lease
5 hrs
Thanks, C! Although it can be either thousandths or ten-thousandths, here it must be the latter, as we have 4,000 of them!
agree Mark Nathan : I suppose this could correspond to a building with two appartments in it.
7 hrs
Thanks, Mark! Indeed, that's one of many possible scenarios; presumably Asker knows!
neutral Daryo : 10.000ièmes -- very plausible, but not sure; as plausible as 4/432ièmes - if this tenant is renting a unit the size of 4 modules in an office block of 432 modules (in 10,000ths it would be a periodical number 92.592592592592...)
12 days
I see the logic in your argument, but the fact remains these things are almost always only ever expressed in 1/1,000ths and 1/10,000ths
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Selected automatically based on peer agreement."
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