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I am looking for a French verb which conveys the meaning of the German word 'pflegen'. In particular in the IT sense of maintaining data (Datenpflegen) by keeping data up-to-date and consistent. I'm also looking for related words such as 'Daten einpflegen' (Data entry).

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Google translates gives me maintenir which goes well with maintenance (to mantain). Is there something wrong with that ? or what is the nuance you wanna convey ? (Daten einpflegen can be saisir or entrer des données.) – Nikana Reklawyks Oct 22 '12 at 7:26
Thanks! Does 'les données sont maintenues' sound right to you? – paul Oct 22 '12 at 7:54
Nope, I'd say "quelqu'un (or on) maintient les données" (or “on s'occupe de maintenir les données”), but after some thought, it doesn't shock me much, and maybe it would sound right so someone who actually manages data in french. Hopefully someone who speaks german can see exactly what you mean? – Nikana Reklawyks Oct 22 '12 at 8:37
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I was also thinking of “entretenir”. – Stéphane Gimenez Oct 22 '12 at 10:04

3 Answers

up vote 4 down vote

As a native German, here my thoughts:

I'm not sure if any French word does have a similar figurative meaning as einpflegen does have, but the suggested word maintenir sounds quite OK to me. Especially because there are a lot of results on Google for maintenir and données in context with SQL and SAP.

Comparing back-translations to German instand halten, aufrechterhalten and such are also expressing what you wanna say. Additionally, Pons translates Pflege and Wartung with entretien et maintenance and Programmwartung with maintenance du programme.

As comments point out, entretien doesn't actually fit in context of data. It is more appropriate when talking about maintaining roads or such. The English maintenance is AFAIK also more about maintaining machines, road etc., not software or data. However, I consider maintenance as barely suitable for Datenpflege.

Hence another, perhaps better, possibility might be mise à jour des données. It simply means to update and this is the closest match I came across in my Google search.

Last but not least, a translation I'd consider as appropriate for einpflegen is saisir. It means to supply or to put in texts, values etc.

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up vote 3 down vote

I'm no german speaker, but from what you explained, I would translate Datenpflegen into Maintenir des données à jour.

As for Daten einpflegen, it could be translated to Entrée / Introduction de données, or Entrer / Introduire des données for the verbal form.

Edit: User Em1 came up with an even better translation for Daten einpflegen : Saisie de données / Saisir des données.

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lol - a programmer's nightmare. You squeeze 'Datenpflege' into a field on the screen, send it for translation and get back 'Maintenir des données à jour'! German really is quite compact - sometimes ;-) – paul Oct 22 '12 at 12:11
@paul: Since you are looking for the substantive, “maintenance des données” should be enough (not quite as compact as the German though). – Stéphane Gimenez Oct 22 '12 at 13:09
I'd rather use Maintien instead of Maintenance when talking about data... – Alexis Pigeon Oct 23 '12 at 21:09
up vote -2 down vote

I don't speak German at all but, by your English description, it seems that « synchronisation des données » could match the meaning.

If it can't fit in the label, you can use « synchro des données » or even « MAJ données ».

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Synchronisation is also a German word and since the German connotation is different to what is being asked, I guess it's same in French. – Em1 Oct 23 '12 at 12:24

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