English Translation
You’re winning.
emporter
verbe transitif
8. [gagner - victoire] to win, to carry off
l’emporter
a. [argument] to win ou to carry the day
b. [attitude, méthode] to prevail
© Larousse 2014
You’re winning.
emporter
verbe transitif
8. [gagner - victoire] to win, to carry off
l’emporter
a. [argument] to win ou to carry the day
b. [attitude, méthode] to prevail
© Larousse 2014
All true, but the French translation sounds weird here.
If someone is (in the process of) winning, I think “être en train de gagner” is better:
Depending on the situation, “gagner” will be used on its own sometimes (i.e. without “en train de”).
For instance, say you’re a parent and your kid is playing some game… You may ask:
Perfect, thanks for the clarification.
What would you say is a good English translation, perhaps simply “You win”?
Well… Had the English sentence been “you win”, I wouldn’t have commented. ![]()
The thing is that “l’emporter” is rather formal and comparatively rarely used.
Let’s say 2 friends have just played a game and the loser wants to congratulate the winner.
→ “L’emporter” typically wouldn’t be used here (I mean, unless we’re talking about two gentlemen playing a game a few hundreds years ago, maybe…)
If you’ve just won a game, you wouldn’t say “Je l’ai emporté!”
One situation I can think of, in which “l’emporter” is actually used pretty often, is when journalists and sports commentators talk about about a game. For instance:
And then there are cases in which “l’emporter” wouldn’t be translated as “to win”, but rather “to prevail”: