give it run for its money.

French translation: donner du fil à retordre à

GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)
English term or phrase:give it run for its money.
French translation:donner du fil à retordre à
Entered by: Thierry Darlis

00:06 Jul 8, 2017
English to French translations [PRO]
Bus/Financial - General / Conversation / Greetings / Letters / colloquial expression
English term or phrase: give it run for its money.
Competition from xxxxx and others will be fierce. But xxxx believes in its chances, given that many of these competitors have been in some kind of transition lately, such as changing owners and leadership or going up-market and not being committed to true mid-market. xxxx will be hard to topple given its deep pockets, good product demos, and the leadership status (à la “you don’t get fired for going xxxx”), but xxxx is ready to put up a good fight and give it run for its money.
Thierry Darlis
United States
Local time: 03:12
donner du fil à retordre à
Explanation:
ou encore
Selected response from:

polyglot45
Grading comment
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer



Summary of answers provided
3 +4donner du fil à retordre à
polyglot45
4 +1ils vont voir à qui ils ont affaire
Tony M
4 +1offrir un (réel) défi à ses concurrents
Hugues D.
4lui en faire voir de toutes les couleurs
Solen Fillatre
5 -3lui en donner pour son argent.
C. MASKA


Discussion entries: 1





  

Answers


4 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5
lui en faire voir de toutes les couleurs


Explanation:
I am not quite sure this is about "money". I am a little unclear on whether the sentence is mentioning two different companies or not, If so, it would have been clearer to replace "xxx" with Company A and Company B for example.

Anyway, if this is about two companies competing as I suspect, I would suggest "lui en faire voir de toutes les couleurs" (put its competitor through the wringer, basically)

Solen Fillatre
France
Local time: 08:12
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: Native in FrenchFrench
PRO pts in category: 16

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
neutral  Tony M: Your closing explanation is pretty close, but I don't think the actual idiom is quite right: it means 'to be a worthy opponent (in a race, originally, hence 'run')'
2 hrs
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7 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +1
give it a run for its money.
ils vont voir à qui ils ont affaire


Explanation:
Almost the exact expression lifted directly from R+C dictionary:

I'll give them a (good) run for their money!  : ils vont voir à qui ils ont affaire!

Note you will need to change the personal pronoun depending on whether you treat 'it' as 'the competing company / product' or as a plural 'they' (the company, collectively).


Tony M
France
Local time: 08:12
Works in field
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 288

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Francois Boye
5 hrs
  -> Merci, François !
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7 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5 peer agreement (net): +4
donner du fil à retordre à


Explanation:
ou encore

polyglot45
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish, Native in FrenchFrench
PRO pts in category: 547

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Tony M: Not quite the same idiom, but I think this could work well here too.
6 mins

agree  Annie Rigler
2 hrs

agree  gayd (X)
2 hrs

agree  Solen Fillatre: Yes I think this is the closest match so far.
8 hrs
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22 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +1
offrir un (réel) défi à ses concurrents


Explanation:
Tiens, Thierry37 est encore au boulot (Thierry37 is still at work). :-)
--- END PERSONAL MESSAGES ---

Seriously, after "is ready to put up a good fight", you might want to say this, or
"offrir un réel défi à ses concurrents".
This is the shortest path... and that's what it means.

Take care,
H

Hugues D.
France
Local time: 08:12
Native speaker of: Native in FrenchFrench

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Tony M
1 hr
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2 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 5/5 peer agreement (net): -3
lui en donner pour son argent.


Explanation:
Expression courante

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 3 hrs (2017-07-08 03:44:58 GMT)
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It's a super known and used expression in France

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 day2 hrs (2017-07-09 02:28:44 GMT)
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I'm having fun with this whole thing

C. MASKA
France
Local time: 08:12
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish, Native in FrenchFrench

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
neutral  writeaway: any refs to back this? I am not 100% sure this is the correct translation
1 hr

disagree  Tony M: I'll go further than W/A and say that I think this is quite the wrong idiom here: 'give him his money's worth'; the sense here is really 'be a worthy opponent'
4 hrs

disagree  B D Finch: Nothing to do with the English source term.
12 hrs

disagree  Daryo: "super known and used..." Well may be, but is that any proof that it fits for this particular ST? // Sounds to me like a pretty bad case of "translation based on statistics, not meanings"!!! We have GT for that ...
21 hrs
  -> calm down buddy
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