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I don't get this sentence at all. I thought the 'or' was the French starting to use English words more and more in their language but as 'or' it doesn't seem to make sense.

si c'est pas possible y'aura pas d'interaction or ce 1er avril 2017 est basé sur l' interaction

I've heard 'or' used at other times by the French and it seemed to be equivalent to the English meaning but here I didn't quite get it.

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    Or can have two different meanings depending on the word being a noun or a conjunction. From the place in the sentence you can tell it is not a noun, so it is the conjunction (meaning two in the link). Or in French can never have the meaning of the English word "or".
    – None
    Commented Sep 19, 2017 at 6:06
  • OK I see, so if you were to replace 'or' here in this sentence with another French word without changing the meaning, what word (or words) could it be?
    – Hasen
    Commented Sep 19, 2017 at 7:08
  • "Or" is mainly to link two opposite arguments so "Mais" can be used but that not really the same things exaclty.
    – Gyncoca
    Commented Sep 19, 2017 at 7:58
  • I thought it meant 'or' because google translate translates it to 'or' in English...but it particularly didn't seem to make sense in this sentence which lead me to inquire here. Strange since google translate is really quite good these days, well for French anyway.
    – Hasen
    Commented Sep 19, 2017 at 8:40
  • The google translation is in fact "if it is not possible there will be no interaction or this 1 April 2017 is based on the interaction". Strange it did all the hard parts perfectly but for some reason had no idea about what 'or' was supposed to be.
    – Hasen
    Commented Sep 19, 2017 at 8:42

3 Answers 3

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For this specific case, an alternative word could be 'cependant':

si c'est pas possible y'aura pas d'interaction or ce 1er avril 2017 est basé sur l' interaction

In this context I'd translate 'or' by 'however':

If it's not possible there'll be no interaction, however this April 1st 2017 is based on interaction.

On a side note, "or" never means the english "or" and the translation for the english "or" is "ou".

Taken from laure's comment here's the two meanings of the french "or", wordreference has also some interesting example

After comment I tried with a better formulation and punctuation on Google translate :

si ce n'est pas possible il n'y aura pas d'interaction, or ce 1er avril 2017 est basé sur l' interaction

which gives something better:

if this is not possible there will be no interaction, but this April 1, 2017 is based on the interaction

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  • Ok thanks for your explanation. I guess the other times I came across 'or' it could have meant 'or' but here it really didn't fit at all. Add to that the fact google translate translates it to 'or' in English....not sure why it does that since its generally pretty accurate these days what with all the community help they have with it.
    – Hasen
    Commented Sep 19, 2017 at 8:39
  • The google translation is in fact "if it is not possible there will be no interaction or this 1 April 2017 is based on the interaction". Strange it did all the hard parts perfectly but for some reason had no idea about what 'or' was supposed to be.
    – Hasen
    Commented Sep 19, 2017 at 8:41
  • @Hasen I saw that and submitted the alternative I used here ;)
    – Tensibai
    Commented Sep 19, 2017 at 8:43
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    @Tensibai I played a bit with google translate, and turns out it has some pretty specific rules to recognize "or": it has to be at the beginning of a sentence, and followed by a comma. "or, ce 1er avril 2017 est basé sur l' interaction" correctly translates to "however, this April 1, 2017 is based on the interaction". This does not match all of the french uses of "or" though.
    – Kerkyra
    Commented Sep 19, 2017 at 10:55
  • @Kerkyra indeed, played after your comment and Luke's one under the question and edited accordingly
    – Tensibai
    Commented Sep 19, 2017 at 13:09
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It's one of the 7 conjonctions de coordination ("mais, ou, et, donc, or, ni, car" -- which list I was taught in school using the mnemonic, "Mais où est donc 'ornicar'?"):

La conjonction or est la conjonction de coordination dont l'emploi est le plus flou. Elle indique généralement une idée d'opposition et s'apparente ainsi à la conjonction « mais »

Tout le monde admire Léonard dans le village. Or on ignore généralement qu'il est profondément dépressif.
C'était un homme prévoyant. Or il lui arriva ce qu'il redoutait le plus.

I'd usually translate it as "however" or "on the other hand" (but the examples above I might translate as "consequently").

Elle est fréquemment utilisée pour mettre en relation deux arguments desquels on va ensuite tirer une déduction :
Tous les hommes sont mortels. Or Socrate est un homme. Donc, Socrate est mortel.

That means something like "whereas".

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In the top sentence, or: yet. If it's not possible, there won't be any interaction, yet this April 1st, 2017, is based on interaction.

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