Marion Feildel (X) May 8, 2013:

subject matter area Je suggère : le domaine du sujet traité ou le domaine en question.

Tony M May 7, 2013:

I know what you mean! And don't worry, Jeanne; KudoZ rules DO allow you to post multi-word expressions (up to 10 words) as long as the translation problem arises from the way they belong together.

In this case, the issue as you say is slightly different: when you understand each of the words individually, but can't quite see how they fit together. What you did was IMHO exactly right: you explained clearly what the problem really is.

In such cases, consider also the possibility of posting your question in the source language monolingual language pair, so as to first get suggestions as to the underlying meaning of the expression as a whole; this can sometimes obviate the need to post in the source > target language pair at all, and may facilitate fuller discussion of the meaning in the source language — as you see I have done here in the discussion area, without being in a position to actually post an answer.

Jeanne Talcone (asker) May 7, 2013:

Thanks Tony it seems clearer now. Sometimes when the text sounds weard it's difficult to only enter one word and a lot more to explain it's the whole sense that one does not understand and not individual words, because I do understand the sense of all words it's just the way they are associated or put into a sentence :)

Tony M May 7, 2013:

'subject matter area' I think the EN is a bit redundant here, but you're maybe not helping your comprehension by trying to translate 'subject matter' as 'champ d'action' — where did you get that idea from? 'subject matter' here is surely more like 'thématique de la discussion' etc., while as F-X has already said, 'field' here is more like 'domaine'.

There is a sort of sense to it (or could be) — imagine that the subject matter of a lecture was 'malnutrition', and the field in which this was being discussed was 'gerontology'?

However, I think you can consider it as basically redundancy in terms of your translation requirements.

Tony M May 7, 2013:

It's alright, Jeanne! It wasn't you who irritated anybody, but the rather curious error message that was sent out in place of your question term; please could you e-mail me privately to explain what it was you had actually entered in the question field that produced this seemingly irrelevant error message?