What is "Schnellhefter" in English and why are they not used here?!

[ContinentalKat]

My kids have crappy folders with stringy bits instead of the metal ones, everything looks always messy and I would like to introduce our primary school to the "Schnellhefter", I just can't seem to find them over here.
Do they exist? What are they called?

Do you mean a ringbinder?

No, it's a thin cardboard or plastic folder, but instead of the strings with metal tops to thread through the punch holes it has bendy metal strips which hold the sheets of paper in place much better. They are also a bit smaller, only just over A4 size, and fit into bookbags and rucksacks. I have to trim the current ones in order to fit properly.

I have folders like that which I bought in my local university shop. It sounds like the sort of thing that WHSmith would sell?

do you mean like project folders with rigid plastic cover and a sliding piece on the spine to hold the pages together? Got some in WH Smiths and Staples if so.

A bit like [[http://www.staples.co.uk/staples-brand/filing-supplies/staples-clamp-binders these?] Its probably a money thing, paper files and the string tags are dirt cheap

these?

I think the OP means <a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.be/imgres?imgurl=www.sbm.lu/articleimages/1181.JPG&imgrefurl=www.sbm.lu/sbm_catalogue2.php%3Fid_cat%3D%26division%3D07%26famille%3D0705%26fsfam5%3Dpap&h=162&w=252&sz=18&tbnid=s2TCs49dD5vwEM:&tbnh=71&tbnw=111&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dfarde%2Ba%2Bglissiere%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=farde+a+glissiere&hl=nl&usg=__Ly5WjqsAwl8IvpcYcDR36P3nPGk=&sa=X&ei=FNPITpnJOceF-waCu8wl&ved=0CBUQ9QEwAg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">these

Farde a glissiere in French - no idea in English....

Potofino, that's exactly what I mean!

I used to use them at school - they're in the YPO catalogue which lots of schools buy their stuff from.

But they're much more expensive than the others which is why I stopped and why I think you'll have no joy.

Please forgive my ignorance, but why can't you just tell parents that they need to provide these? Where I come from, school does not supply you with pens or folder.

In the GLS catalogue, which lots of schools use, the plastic folders cost around 80p each, the card ones plus two treasury tags cost 12p. You'd have to be able to reuse the plastic ones seven times to make them cheaper. Also they take up more room and won't stack in a pile without slipping like the card ones do.

As for asking parents to provide them, you might possibly get away with that in secondary school, not in primary.

you can buy those in wh smiths or any other stationers. i used to use them at school

i would call it a project folder

I've never seen them in the UK. I just call them folders in my English lessons but I'm sure there must be a more specific name.

The ones that I vought were called project folders too.

Thanks for all your input!

Project folders sounds good. You'd probably have to specify exactly what you meant if you wanted British parents to buy them though, in a way that you wouldn't with Schnellhefter. I wouldn't have known what a project folder was (haven't lived in the UK for 12 years, though!).

I don't think you'd get away with telling parents that they need to provide stationery items at primary school either, certainly not to the extent that you're expected to in other countries. We spent getting on for ?150 on stationery, exercise books, etc. for the DDs last year and I dread to think how much it's going to cost when DS starts school.

We have them at work by the bucket load. I'll find out what they're called

They seem to be called spring files or transfer files, I can only find them in bulk

here

GLS version

They seem very expensive - we only pay about ?2 for a pack of 10.

They really are very cheap in Germany (and very useful). I have a pack of 20 which cost me a euro from some discount shop. However they can refer to two different things - either the thin mechanism that merely holds papers together, or, more commonly, an entire plastic folder (usually transparent at the front and coloured at the back so you can distinguish between different school subjects).

<a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.de/imgres?imgurl=upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Schnellhefter_Kunststoff.jpg&imgrefurl=en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Schnellhefter_Kunststoff.jpg&h=1908&w=3568&sz=2006&tbnid=Vzz7fAeHwIhqTM:&tbnh=69&tbnw=129&prev=/search%3Fq%3DSchnellhefter%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=Schnellhefter&usg=__tyEPVZy_QA2uVn3MMNwfKi273ek=&sa=X&ei=A-XITvKdHYbIhAect-SeDw&ved=0CFYQ9QEwAQ&dur=503" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">This is an example of the transparent/coloured kind.

My Oxford-Duden dictionary calls them loose-leaf binder or quick release file; LEO calls them simply folder, loose leaf binder or plastic folder.

Skiiing The spring files are slightly different, I think. There's no spring in the ones we mean.

Thanks Rusty, that seems to be the executive version. I have just found the simpler version online at durable, now hunting for cheaper options

I also found loose-leaf binder and plastic folder as translations - but both terms could cover quite a wide variety of folders (I would automatically think of a ring binder if I heard "loose-leaf binder"). I don't think there's any translation you could use where everyone would immediately know what you meant.

There's quite a wide selection on eBay, although still not as cheap as you'd find on the continent (and you probably can't rely on eBay as a regular supplier either).