Élan is the lively, confident energy a person shows when they do something — especially something people can watch. It is not the energy itself, and not the skill itself. It is the *style* of doing it: quick, sure, a little bit showy, as if the person is enjoying it and knows they are good. A dancer can be technically perfect and still have no élan. Another dancer can make a small mistake but move with so much life and confidence that everyone watches her instead. That second one has élan. So the word almost always comes after a verb, telling you HOW something was done: she played with élan, he answered the question with great élan, the team attacked with real élan. The phrase 'with élan' is by far the most common way you will meet it. You can also say a performance 'had élan'. Two things to know about how it feels. First, it is a written, educated word. English took it from French and kept the French accent mark on the e, and it still sounds a bit French — you will find it in reviews of concerts, plays, books, and sport, and in older writing. If you say it in normal conversation with friends, you will sound like you are performing. Nothing wrong with that, but know that you are doing it. Second, it is warm. When a writer says someone did something with élan, the writer likes it. There is no unkind version of this word — if you want the unkind version, that is 'showing off'. Writers do stretch it a little. Some use it for the energy of a whole group or a whole time in history ('the élan of the young army'), meaning their spirit and their belief that they will win. That use is older and you meet it mostly in history books. Some use it just to mean 'style', dropping the energy part — that is loose, but common enough that you should not be surprised by it. Pronunciation is the trap: English speakers say it roughly ay-LAHN or ay-LON, with the stress on the second half, not on the first.

幹勁十足的風采、瀟灑俐落的氣勢。台灣講義裡常翻成「熱情、幹勁」，但那不夠準——élan 講的不是有沒有力氣，是「做起來好看、有自信、帶勁」的那個樣子，接近中文說某人做事「很有派頭」「很帶勁」「瀟灑」。最常見的用法 with élan，可以想成「做得漂亮又有自信」。