Nikki Scott-Despaigne Aug 19, 2016:

@Liz Aha, bonne question!!! Well, it's up to you to consider whether within the style of your original you can adopt the French original. It is rather "imagé" and quite effective. It seems to be an original one-off idea in French too, not a common option. Based on that sort of idea, you could go with something using "headphones" for example. Younger audiences may not even know what a Walkman is! You may prefer another approach and use the technical term C-arm.

You could even be quite neutral, for example :

- The C-arm unit is set up so that it does not get in the way of the operators and so that it can be maniuplated more easily.

If you think the "il" is in fact referring to the patient, which, as the closest masc. sing. noun would normally mean that is hte case, then you will have to formulate it differently:

- the patient is positionned between the two parts of the unit, headphone style...
- the patient is positionned with the C-arm either side of him, headphone-style...

I prefer the use of "C-arm" and I do think that the FR is describing how the unit is positionned in relation to the patient and not the other way round. I'd drop the headphone idea.

liz askew (asker) Aug 19, 2016:

In that case, how do I actually translate this into English?

Rachel Fell Aug 19, 2016:

Nice (explanatory) link Nikki.

Nikki Scott-Despaigne Aug 18, 2016:

C-arm https://www.ziehm.com/fileadmin/user_upload/en_us/company/pr...

The "il" in the sentence in question refers to the image intensifier, not the patient!

As you can see in the second page of this document, and as described by Juan and Paul, the C-arm of the intensifier can be angled in a number of ways and the effect, on a giant scale, is that of a Walkman with the patient in the middle.

Paul Kozelka Aug 18, 2016:

"horizontally" Given that the device seems normally to have the head on top and "receiver" on the bottom with a "arc" joining them, my guess would be that "Walkman" style means tipping it horizontally as if both were earbuds in your ears. Try 'amplificateur...." on Google to get photos.

Juan Jacob Aug 18, 2016:

Installé... ..."Walkmanlike", à mon avis.