Mots Maudits #2: Animer

In this second post on my bugbears, pet peeves, and bêtes noires, I would like to examine the curious case of “animer” and “animation".

I can already hear the French to English translators groaning at the back, but before I go any further, let me make it clear for those who don’t speak French that this is not a blog post on cartoons, anime, stop-motion video, or any such distraction. Nor do I want to discuss the other sense of “animation", quite close to the English; liveliness, activity, ebullience, or vitality. No. Today, I want to discuss the many and varied ways “animer” and “animation” are used in corporate communication. They crop up with predictable regularity and yet their meaning can be surprisingly elusive. Maybe some examples would be in order.

Probably the most common usage of “animer” is in something like “animer une équipe”. This is fairly self-explanatory and can usually be translated as “manage a team”. If the context refers to a working group or committee, a word like “coordinate” would probably be more suitable. Indeed, “coordinate” is a word I frequently use to translate “animer”; in sentences like “animer un réseau” or “animer un groupe”.

Another recurring usage is something like “animer une reunion/un atelier/une session de formation”. Here, the meaning is clear from the context, and we can translate it fairly confidently with a verb like “chair”, “facilitate”, “give”, “teach”, “run”, “moderate”, “hold”, or “conduct” depending on whether we are talking about a meeting, a workshop, or a training session.

So, we’re good, right? Not quite. This is where it gets more complicated…

With phrases like “animer une démarche” or “animer une politique”, you might also be tempted to use “coordinate”, but “animer” has a slightly more dynamic connotation in this context, so maybe a verb like “drive” would convey this more adequately.

When it comes to more esoteric uses (“animer les relations”, “animer la vie de l’entreprise”, “animer la politique”, “animer le plan d’actions”), unless the rest of the text provides more context, sometimes you just need to bite the bullet and call the client to ask for clarification.

For example, I once came across “animer le site internet”. After hesitating between several possible interpretations (“manage the website”, “update the website”, “promote the website”), I called my client who confirmed that it meant all of the above. In this case, “animer le site” meant "manage the website and produce and publish content in order to drive traffic to it”.

And finally, in just the last two days I have run into "animer le point de vente" twice in the context of seasonal marketing (Christmas and Valentine’s Day) in the food service industry. In cases like these, I am often tempted to rephrase the sentence to use “promotion”, but what if the author is only referring to store decorations? It might also imply some kind of seasonal product, an in-store tasting stand, a BOGO, or a partnership. Ultimately the purpose of this type of “event” is to “drive traffic to the outlet and boost sales”, so that is also a translation option in the absence of more context.

And they say that French is wordier than English... Can you think of an English word that means all that?