French: Gen meaning in English?

Question

I read this, but cannot find "gen" in any dictionary.Please translate:

C'EST LE GEN QUE J'AI RENCONTRÉ

One on line translator translated "gen" as "tuyaux". Why?

Thx!

Answer 1

"C'EST LE GEN QUE J'AI RENCONTRÉ"

translates in my mind as "It is the person that I met."

I think someone tried to make 'gens' (for people) singular. So although it may not be the right word, from the meaning we can guess at what they were intending.

Answer 2

Need more information about the context of the sentence...

Cause "gen" doesn't mean anything in french!!!

Answer 3

it should say "gens", which means people.

meaning those are the people i met.

Answer 4

Maybe it's meant as a back-singularization of "les gens"? "Les gens" is "people" but it's not the plural of "le gen".

Tuyau is a hose or tube, I believe. Tuyaux is the plural.

Answer 5

Why would you be translating a French word or phrase into French?

The reason could be simply that you were translating a word in English slang, namely "gen" into French.  The word "gen" in English, when it is used as a noun, is slang for "information".  It can also be used a a verb in English, as in "gen up", which means "to provide oneself with information".  According to the dictionary, it is perhaps derived from the term "general informaton".

"Tuyau" (singular), in French, has a familiar or slang meaning in French, as well as being a word for "pipe, tube, hose, chimney, flue; shaft, funnel; stalk (of corn); stem (of feather, pipe); nozzle; flute, goffer, (of frills); (fam.) stomach, throat".  It is in fact familiar for "private information; source of information, contact".  An example is given in the expression "un tuyau increvable", meaning in English "a hot tip".

The noun "tuyautage" (masculine) in French , besides meaning "frilling, goffering", in regular use, also is a familiar or slang term for "giving confidential information or tips, putting in the know".

"Tuyauter", as a verb, has a familiar meaning as well as a standard one.  The slang meaning is "to give confidential information or tips to; to put in the picture".  "Se faire tuyauter" means "to pick up tips; to get oneself in the picture".  The regular meaning of "tuyauter" is "to frill, to flute, to goffer".  In agriculture, it is standard for "to show a stem".  

It looks like you may have found an online translator that translates English slang into French slang or vice versa.  Finding an online translator that does such a task strikes me as a wonderful achievement on your part.

I must admit that I did not know this information until I attempted to answer your question.  I must thank you for helping me to improve my English.

Your sentence could means one of two or more things.  It would depend on the context.  It might mean that "gen" was being used as a foreign expression in French.  It would therefore mean "It's the information that I encountered/ran into".  It could also simply be an error or misspelling of the word "gens" as used in the masculine singular to refer to people or persons collectively, as in a collective noun, and sometimes used to refer to people as opposed to animals or things.

Since you live in Denver, I thought you might be providing people with the "gen" on the Democratic convention, especially the scandalous details the public is not supposed to know.

Answer 6

You can't find it in the dictionary because it's the wrong spelling for ''gens'' meaning people. My guess is the person wanted to make it singular by deleting the ''S'', except gens does not exist in the singular in French! It's the same in English, one person, several people. In French, une personne, des gens.

So your sentence should read: c'est la personne que j'ai rencontrée'' meaning it's the person I met!