Translation Please???

I emailed a hotel, in English, to get their cancellation policy. They wrote back, in French. Can somebody please interpret?

72 heures avant l%26#39;arrivé sous pénalité d%26#39;une nuit

I could take a guess that it%26#39;s no penalty if cancelled 72 hours in advance, but that%26#39;s purely a guess.

Thanks for your help.

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literally it says: 72 hours before the arrival without penalty of one night. So yes, you are right. No penalty if you cancel at least 32 hours in advance.

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If you cancel 72 hours before your arrival the penalty is one nights rate

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FYI -- A website I have been using a lot while planning my trip to Paris:

http://babelfish.altavista.com/

You can translate phrases or entire websites -- we like entire website function for restaurant websites especially. :)

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You can translate phrases or entire websites -- we like entire website function for restaurant websites especially. :)

Have you tried retranslating them into English once they have been translated into French? It is often very funny and shows the limitations of automatic translators.

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For example the above translate with Bablefish to

72 hours before arrived under one night penalty

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I do apologize. First off, I wrote 32 hours and of course it should have said 72 hours. Then, I think SueBeth is correct. %26quot;sous%26quot; means %26quot;under.%26quot; So it would say 72 hours before arrival under penalty of one night. Whether that means %26quot;in real english%26quot; that if you cancel more than 72 hours before arriving you pay for one night or not, I am not sure.

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Maybe the OP could let us have the whole sentence in real French so we can translate into real English!

It is difficult to translate a few words taken out of context. What comes before or after the sentence quoted hereabove can make a huge difference.

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If you don%26#39;t cancel before 72h (3 days) you will be charged one night.