Elle était en train de diriger le projet de groupe.

Sentence Discussions French
#1
English Translation

She was leading the group project.

Could this also be "“Elle était en train de mener le projet de groupe.” ?

#2

Before answering your question, I will just mention that “être en train de + infinitif” may be the “default” to translate the continuous aspect - “to be + ing” - but sometimes it isn’t necessary.

I see you have discussed it here:

Same thing here, it also feels kinda clunky.

  • “Elle dirigeait le projet de groupe.”,

sounds more natural to me.

There is some overlap and I guess “to lead” will be used fairly often to translate both verbs, but “dirigeait” is better and should be used here.

I am not aware of any rule that would enable you to always pick the correct one in French, so I will just list a few thoughts:

Diriger:

  • to be in charge / in a position to make decisions
  • So “diriger” can be used to talk about a business, a project, a team…
  • IOW, when you’re the boss/director/manager, then you “dirige” whatever it is you’re in charge of

Mener:

  • The first thing that comes to mind is that “mener” is used in a lot of set phrases:

Mener au score, mener à la victoire, mener la danse, mener le jeu, mener les débats, mener l’enquête, mener une vie [insert word], mener à bien, mener à son terme, mener à rien, mener nulle part, “Tous les chemins mènent à Rome.”…

  • So as far as core meanings, I would say: To be in the lead (as in 1st position in sports), or leading as in moving things/people forward, broadly speaking, the idea of movement
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#3

Thanks for the detail on Diriger vs Mener – the set phrases also help a lot!

I guess some of this will just come down to getting more exposure to French so I can get an ear for when to use either.

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