Selon Tom, elles seraient rentrées chez elles vers 3h.
According to Tom, they went home (lit.would have gone home) around 3.
The French sounds as if it should be translated as the time they "got home" whereas the English "went home" implies it is the time they left -- time travel ?
Hi Andrew,
Having checked with my colleagues, the verb 'rentrer chez soi' can be both 'to go home' and 'to get home'.
This has been asked before and we decided without the full context to plumb for one of them.
Hope this helps!
Hi Andrew,
"Elles seraient rentrées chez elles vers 3h." --> They would have arrived back (returned, got back) into their home about (around) 3am.
The difficulty is in just how we translate this action - we could also say "gotten" home if we were to use an American English slant to the translation.
What is indisputable to my mind is the fact that the action is based on arrival home, and not on the time of departure of the return journey.
This is how I see it -- hope it helps.
Bonne journée
Jim
Bonjour Andrew, I tend to agree with Jim that return home equates to arrive at home, but the Collins online dictionary provides partir pour aller chez soi and arriver chez soi as possible definitions of rentrer. As ever, context is everything and these definitions could be used if precision is needed. Matthew
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