Emmanuella Nov 19, 2022:

D'accord avec Lionel-M. 'Ne doit pas' n'indique pas un ordre.
Paraphrasant, cela signifie ' ne pensez pas qu'un diagnostic puisse conditionner votre vie..
L'Asker pourrait indiquer la nature du problème, mais apparemment, elle a disparu...

Tony M Nov 19, 2022:

@ Lionel Not necessarily!
There are many more possibilities in En than in FR.
In this particular instance, I would translate 'ne devrait pas' as 'ought not to' — the use of 'ought' is a more explicit rendering of 'devoir' than 'should', which risks confusion with a conditional, subjunctive, etc.
The problem is that FR is short of a modal verb to cover the sense of 'may' in EN, which sometimes falls between 'devoir' and 'pouvoir'. DE is more helpful in this respect!

Lionel-N Nov 19, 2022:

@Tony Je traduirais "un diagnostic ne devrait pas...." as "a dignostic should not..."; je me trompe ?

Tony M Nov 19, 2022:

@ Lionel Yes, I understand all that; but even so, in smoothing over the FR, you are erasing the important nuance of meaning that ahs been purposefully included in the EN sourc text.
Perhaps it would work with 'ne devrait' instead? That to me seeme to better convey this nuance — especially if further qualified with 'nécessairement' or something along the same lines.

Lionel-N Nov 19, 2022:

@Tony Tony, dans un document médical, et je pense plus de psyschiatrie que de psycologie car on parle de maladie (diagnostic !), la phrase "Un diagnostic ne conditionnera pas obligatoirement votre vie entière,...." sincèrement "ne sonne pas" très Frenchy.
Dire que le diagnostic ne conditionnera pas ou qu'il ne doit pas conditionner est, au final, exactement la même chose, a la même valence et la même conséquence pour le patient, saufg que la deuxième phrase est "standard en médecine", la première ...pas vraiment. Si un Français lit "Un diagnostic ne conditionnera pas obligatoirement votre vie entière", il lit une affirmation à laquelle il lui vient immédiatement à dire "et pourquoi ?", non qu'il n'ait compris le concept.

Tony M Nov 19, 2022:

@ Asker It's vital here, and particularly in this field of psychiatry, to fully comprehend the nuance of meaning in the EN source text, where "does not have to" is not at all the same thing as "must not". The sense might be conveyed for example, by "You should not allow ... to shape..."
As often when translating into FR, it is vital to correctly construe the sense of the negative in EN, which can often be, or at least appear, ambiguous. A clearer example might be the difference between 'cannot' and 'can not' — there are times in FR when we will need 'ne peut pas...', but at other times, we will need 'peut ne pas...'
The 'does not have to' here = 'may not necessarily'; 'it is not necessarily the case that...' — the sense is much less emphatic than 'must not', and any translation that takes it in that direction is IMHO a serious error, in this field of human psychiatry.
The sense is really "Just because you have been diagnosed as XYZ, this does not mean your whole life is going to be determined by this diagnosis.