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Une présentation du nouveau collègue est de mise en point info.
Marrakchis
Feb 1, 2019 04:06
5 yrs ago
49 viewers *
French term

Divorcé en premières noces

Non-PRO French to English Law/Patents Law (general)
From a granting of power of attorney from an American, to carry out a property transfer of ownership. I understood this term to mean "in his first marriage", yet the client clearly stated that the individual to whom he was married and to whom the property was being transferred was his second wife. Advice, please
Proposed translations (English)
4 +5 divorced from his first marriage
3 divorced after his first marriage
Change log

Feb 1, 2019 11:50: mchd changed "Level" from "PRO" to "Non-PRO"

Votes to reclassify question as PRO/non-PRO:

Non-PRO (3): Yvonne Gallagher, Rachel Fell, mchd

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Discussion

Tony M Feb 3, 2019:
@ Asker Although that is, of course, important extra context, fortunately, that doesn't actually change things here! The expression asked still only applies to the first marriage, there is no mention of the current situation. I assume the second divorce is mentioned separately elsewhere in your document.
Marsha Conroy (asker) Feb 2, 2019:
Divorcé en premières noces I was not clear in my original question: the individual to whom my client is transferring property is indeed the second wife, but MY CLIENT IS NOW DIVORCED FROM THIS INDIVIDUAL ALSO.
Germaine Feb 2, 2019:
David, Yep, I agree, you have to take a look! Et particulièrement quand la recherche porte sur une expression qui change de sens avec le contexte ou qui se trouve surtout dans des textes de nature spécialisée ou privée. La fréquence n’est jamais qu’un indicateur; l’intérêt est de discerner les sources. Ici, alors que les deux premières recherches font ressortir de nombreuses sources juridiques qu’on peut estimer fiables, la troisième renvoie essentiellement à des forums. Qu’on dise, familièrement, qu’on a "divorcé son premier mariage", je peux comprendre. Qu’un professionnel l’écrive dans une procuration? Non.

Cela dit, ce matin, "divorced from his first wife" renvoie 113 000 ghits, "from his spouse": 1730, "from his marriage": 30... When you dig down and go from "Page 14 of about 113,000 results" to "Page 15 of about 144 results" and then, for repeating the search "with the omitted results included", from "Page 29 of about 109,000 results" to "Page 30 of about 299 results", does it means there’s really only 299 precise results out of 113 000/109 000 (I doubt it!) or that Google limits the posting of similar results?
David Sirett Feb 2, 2019:
Note on Ghitting When doing Ghit comparisons, it's really necessary to dig down by clicking through the pages of results to see whether the last Ghit can be reached, reducing the approximation. In Germaine's example, I get similar results for the first estimates, but end up with 300/114/58 Ghits respectively. Same order for the three phrases, but very different impression of their relative frequencies.
Germaine Feb 1, 2019:
"divorced from his first wife" (105 000 ghits)
https://www.google.com/search?ei=On1UXKeuOKWzjwSixZSIBg&q="d...

"divorced from his first spouse" (1870 ghits)
https://www.google.com/search?q="divorced from his first spo...

divorced from his first marriage (58 ghits)
https://www.google.com/search?ei=uH1UXIDzKsHgjwS527_QDw&q="d...
writeaway Feb 1, 2019:
To answer your question As part of the formalities in such texts, they will list any previous marriage(s). It means that his previous (ie his first) marriage ended in divorce and he was divorced from that spouse.

Proposed translations

+5
3 hrs
Selected

divorced from his first marriage

Yes, of course: he is now married to his second wife, having been divorced from the previous (= first) one.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 13 hrs (2019-02-01 17:29:27 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

As Germaine kindly points out, one can equally well say "divorced from his first wife/spouse". The latter has the advantage of being non-gender-specific, as of course the FR already is by virtue of the syntax itself.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 13 hrs (2019-02-01 17:41:32 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

The point here is that the document is focusing on the new wife, and only making passing reference to the first one; hence why mentioning 'marriage', or indeed 'a marriage' places the emphasis correctly on the now rather than the previous. After all, what we are interested in is the fact this person is divorced — incidentally, from one single previous marriage.
Peer comment(s):
agree Jean-Charles Pirlet : that's the meaning
3 hrs
Merci, Jean-Charles !
agree katsy
3 hrs
Thanks, Katsy!
agree Ph_B (X) : Of course: he married once, got divorced and married again (silly billy! - some people will never learn...) and is transferring a property to his second wife (what a silly thing to do!). :-)
4 hrs
Merci, Ph-b ! Some people never learn... ;-)
agree Katarina Peters
8 hrs
Thanks, Katarina!
agree AllegroTrans
9 hrs
Thanks, C!
neutral Germaine : Don’t you divorce from a spouse rather than "from a marriage" ? // Well... in a power of attorney, I would rather use the one making sense than the "you-know-what-I-mean" version.
10 hrs
Merci, Germaine ! In EN, we can say it either way; think of it as something « ... il est divorcé, à l'issue d'une premier union... » We also use 'divorce a spouse' transitively. Both make perfect sense in EN, which just expresses it differently from FR .
agree Erzsébet Czopyk : Thank you, dear Tony + thank you all
11 hrs
Thanks, Erzsébet!
neutral Yvonne Gallagher : Fully agree with Germaine as it's far more natural (and precise). Anyway, emphasis is on the spouse/wife to whom the property is being transferred.
1 day 7 hrs
Thanks, Yvonne! As I have indicated in my added note; however, please note the S/T makes no mention of the first wife, and I think it is unnecessary to drag her into it!
neutral James Langridge : I have to agree with Germaine here.
4 days
Thanks, James! I still feel that here it is all about the MARRRIAGE, not the WIFE; I think Germaine's quibble about the actual syntax per se is not valid.
disagree Mpoma : Agree with Germaine. You don't say this in English.
1085 days
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
1085 days

divorced after his first marriage

As pointed out by Germaine in the comment on Tony's answer, you simply don't say "divorced from a marriage".

The text I'm doing now says "divorcé en premières noces de Mme XXX". The obvious way to say this is therefore "divorced after his first marriage FROM Mrs XXX".
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