I'm talking about a town, in terms of the good things and bad things about it. To summarise at the end, I'd like to say

'It is a town which has the basic commodities, but it still has a long way to go.'

I'm stuggling on 'long way to go' but here is my translation at the moment:

'Elle est une ville qui a les marchandises basiques, mais elle a toujours un long chemin pour y aller.'

Is this correct? Merci en avance!

 

"has a long way to go" is idiomatic. It means "there are many things to improve" (of course, you know this).

Your translation is a fine literal one, but I don't believe it carries the same meaning. I trust our French native speakers will have some better ideas.

 

Des progrès/ améliorations restent à faire.

 

Thank you for both your comments - doinel, how/where does that fit into the sentence? Thanks!

 

Il s'agit d'une ville dotée des infrastructures de base mais qui mériterait de se développer davantage.

 

mais il y a encore beaucoup à faire

 

there is a similar expression in french, you can use it if the subject is a person, for instance: "Bernard a encore du chemin à parcourir", but you cannot say that about a town. It would sound aukward. So I would advise to use an impersonal sentence :"Il y a du chemin à parcourir"= "there's a long way to go": "C'est une ville dotée des infrastructures de base, mais il y a encore du chemin à parcourir." It's closer to the original, more literal but would sound still a bit familiar and weak. Steveblu's version is far better because it's typically french, fair but enthusiast :"Il s'agit d'une ville dotée des infrastructures de base mais qui mériterait de se développer davantage."

 

Ok, thank you all for your help! I will probably go for SteveBlu's suggestion then but all of your comments are very much appreciated!
Merci beaucoup!

 

chez-nous on dit; 'il/elle a encore beaucoup de chemin a faire'