English translation: [recommends/requests/orders] a blood test for uric acid
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GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)
French term or phrase:
dosage du taux d'acide urique dans le sang
English translation:
[recommends/requests/orders] a blood test for uric acid
French to English translations [PRO] Medical - Medical: Pharmaceuticals / Contraindications of paracetamol
French term or phrase:dosage du taux d'acide urique dans le sang
The text says that you should inform your doctor that you are taking paracetamol if: "...votre médecin vous prescrit un dosage du taux d’acide urique dans le sang"
Is this referring to testing the amount of blood uric acid?
don't get me started!
There are European guidelines for writing PILs. The French don't follow them. Why? Because they have their own guidelines - much better than anyone else's, naturellement.
Used to have arguments with my French hubby about whose way of doing things was best. I won by saying "doing things my way means they get done". I don't sit around thinking about things, therefore I do. Non Cartesian.
In the days when I used to translate for jet engines, we repeatedly had texts saying "déserrer et retirer les écrous, puis retirer le machin du schmilblick, ayant au préalable positionné un chariot pour recevoir le machin (qui pèse 50 kg)" which we broke down into "ATTENTION: The whatsit weighs 50kg. Place a trolley to receive it before removing it from the thingee" and "Loosen and remove the nuts ...". I wonder how common foot injuries were among the French aircraft engineers! French recipes do the same: "Casser les oeufs dans un bol .... que vous aurez chauffé à une température de ... ". They consistently assume you know things you don't, before you get to them.
what the purpose of the blood test is? My doctor just scribbles off an illegible note, and it is only when I get typewritten results that I know what tests he wanted.
However, he might tell me he's "ordering" a blood test to see if my ailment is gout, for instance, and that, I do know, will entail a uric acid count. But I'm not sure everyone does.
This sounds like a text written by doctors FOR doctors! For patients maybe it should say "if your doctor's sending you for a blood test to check for gout". Better still (why put the onus on the patient? (I guess it goes with having the patient take his own temperature!)), why doesn't the doctor ASK his patient if he is taking paracetemol?
Why must the French do everything backwards?
many different ways of saying it - blood test for uric acid, test for uric acid in the blood. I tend to avoid expressions like "blood uric acid test" unless saving space is imperative. It is better to use language resembling the spoken word in PILs.
Yes, if you have a blood test, this will establish the levels of "whatever" in the blood, i.e. triglycerides, cholesterol, uric acid, etc..this is my understanding
Thank you Liz, that helps! Yes it is a strangely disjointed text. If you are testing blood uric acid, is it not implied that you are testing blood uric acid levels?
In France, the doctor 'prescribes' you a blood test, because s/he gives you a written prescription which you have to take to a separate 'laboratoire d'analyses médicales' to get done.
I'm afraid there is no more context. It is a sentence unrelated to anything before or after, except that it is relating to contraindications of paracetamol as I said.
I know, I thought the same thing because I haven't come across it before. I was also thrown by "vous prescrit un dosage..." but I suspected it may be an analysis, which really is the only possible thing it could be in this context.
The translation workplace 
