Need French Translation
 

We received confirmation (en francais) for a hotel room with twin beds and would like to request a double or queen. What is the idiomatic language to use? Thanks!

Ask for &quot;un grand lit, s'il vous plait&quot; (a big bed, please).<BR><BR>

or un grand lit pour deux personnes (one big bed for two people). Also be aware it's common for hotels to put 2 beds together to make a king.

I think you had better get very specific, that's what I do. &quot;grand lit&quot; for French hotels usually means a double bed, and if that is acceptable to you, might work. Many hotels seem to use franglais for queen/king (ie, &quot;queen&quot; or &quot;king&quot;). <BR><BR>I'd be specific and ask for sizes: 140 cm is a double, 160 cm is a queen, 180 cm is a king-size bed very close to the exact sizes common in the US. I've also seen hotels put together two twins and call it a queen/king or whatever (although more in other countries than France). Just say you want a &quot;grand lit&quot; of 140 or 160 cm. A lot of hotels don't have queen-size beds (160 cm), however.

For any future correspondence, try:<BR>http://babelfish.altavista.com/<BR><BR>online translation tool - not 100% accurate - it translates literally rather than figuratively, but the other side will understand your message.

try www.wordreference.com--as a language teacher i find it more useful than babelfish

Thank you one and all! Whenever I use those online translation sites the results are less than satisfactory. (I actually speak enough French to know how much the auto-translator has mangled my words.) And fodorites will give me idiomatic language as actually spoken -- this site is such a great resource!

Hi Marilyn,<BR>I suppose the first thing to do is try English.In my experience every French Hotel has English speakers.<BR>Of course you need to get the arrangements right so don't rely on a language if you don't understand it and don't have to.<BR>Au revoir<BR><BR>Muck<BR>