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Glossary entry

French term or phrase:

neutre ou inférieure en termes de coût

English translation:

cost-neutral or below/lower

Added to glossary by Lara Barnett
Dec 13, 2016 13:29
7 yrs ago
French term

neutre ou inférieure en termes de coût

Non-PRO French to English Bus/Financial Business/Commerce (general) Instructions for a tender
This is a section on alternative technical bids. I have used "neutral or lower cost", but as I cannot find much on the web that uses this wording, I wonder if there is a standard term I have been unable to find:

"..... Dans ce cas, la variante ne sera acceptable que si elle est neutre ou inférieure en termes de coût à l’offre de base qui a été évaluée la moins disant."

I have put:

"... In this case, the alternative bid shall only be acceptable if it is of neutral or lower cost than the bid evaluated as the lowest bid."
Proposed translations (English)
4 +4 cost-neutral or below/lower
4 shall be equal to or less than the amount/cost
4 if its cost is the same as or lower than
Change log

Dec 13, 2016 13:53: writeaway changed "Field" from "Law/Patents" to "Bus/Financial"

Dec 13, 2016 16:31: B D Finch changed "Level" from "PRO" to "Non-PRO"

Votes to reclassify question as PRO/non-PRO:

Non-PRO (3): Angus Stewart, Jennifer White, B D Finch

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Discussion

Lara Barnett (asker) Dec 14, 2016:
@ Tony Thanks for your help. I have just checked my translation and I did not shorten this in my target text, it must have been a typing error in the question posted - good to know though.
Tony M Dec 14, 2016:
@ Asker Yes, but that's exactly my point: I think having made that (presumably correct) assumption, you then fell into the trap of trying to shorten it in the same way as in FR; since 'alternative' is not a precise synonym of 'variant' in this context, you can't really afford to drop the 'technical' when you translate it. People will probably understand it correctly — but it is not really the kind of linguistic precision that is called for in this type of document.
Lara Barnett (asker) Dec 13, 2016:
@ Tony I assumed that "variante" is an abbreviated way of saying "Les variantes techniques", which is what seems to be used for an "alternative technical bid".

Proposed translations

+4
55 mins
Selected

cost-neutral or below/lower

"Cost-neutral" means not making any difference to the existing level of costs.
Peer comment(s):
agree B D Finch : cost-neutral or lower
2 hrs
agree Chakib Roula
4 hrs
agree AllegroTrans : that's it!
7 hrs
agree Tony M
7 hrs
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
40 mins

shall be equal to or less than the amount/cost

I agree with you that "neutral or inferior to" does not sound right. I would suggest the above.
Peer comment(s):
neutral Victoria Britten : Yes, but not 'shall be': Lara's right about 'is'.
14 mins
neutral Tony M : Agree with Victoria: not 'shall', and this doesn't sound terribly natural in EN, as well as not having a subject in the sentence structure as it stands.
8 hrs
Something went wrong...
8 hrs

if its cost is the same as or lower than

Just to offer a variation on Rob's excellent suggestion, I do feel that 'in terms of cost' is unncessarily unwieldy in the sentence as given, and could be avoided by using a modified word order such as this.

You may also wish to look again at the way you are rendering 'variant'.
Something went wrong...
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