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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 10/01/2008 : 09:10:38 [Permalink]
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Simon.....
| ((I'll be nit picky here but 'que vous dire' translates as: 'What you saying?'. The correct sentence would be 'Que-voulez vous dire?')). |
What say you, Simon? The transposed colloquial intends a flippancy that "What do you say" or "What do you mean" does not convey. Better yet would be "dire ce que vous?" or, for more of a slang shading, "quel dites-vous" ?
My French was acquired from a long summer spent in Paris, where most of the citizens were far more bilingual than I. It was easy to fall back on English! If I had spent the time in the delightful campagne française, I would have been immersed in the tongue and much more facile today.
I don't get much help from my wife who speaks German, and adores cursing me in Yiddish! However, I appreciate your correction, Simon and please feel free to offer better French syntax anytime you notice a clumsy usage on my part.
It is definitely not nit-picking! Those of us that are incomplete always benefit from tutorial intended to improve. I frequently find myself reflecting - would that I had another eight decades to learn vastly more than I have learned in the past eight. I would gladly make the sacrifices entailed in physical deterioration (and they are indeed severe) if I could keep adding to the joy that is knowledge - forever, if that was possible!
I truly appreciate SFN as an opportunity to learn. I would like to urge any menbers that feel the same way to support this unique meeting-of-the-minds playing field with modest contributions from time to time. I know that many of you do, but considering the unpaid efforts of those whose efforts make the site possible, even an occasional ten dollars or so will help keep the cybernetic gears turning! PayPal is on the front page. I urge everyone participating to feed the PayPal Pig something whenever it is possible for you to do so!
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| Edited by - bngbuck on 10/01/2008 09:18:16 |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
 Posted - 10/01/2008 : 11:14:54 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Simon? The transposed colloquial intends a flippancy that "What do you say" or "What do you mean" does not convey. Better yet would be "dire ce que vous?" or, for more of a slang shading, "quel dites-vous" ?
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Fair enough... I'd more like: 'Qu'est-ce-que tu racontes?'.
It is not an exact translation (raconter is the word used for fairy tells, for example) but it is more dismissive.
It is a difference between the English and French language. A lot of nuance are translated in English through the grammatical constructions, while French tends to rely more on distinct words with nuances in meaning...
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Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 10/01/2008 : 16:21:51 [Permalink]
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Simon.....
La beauté se trouve dans l'œil du spectateur et dans l'oreille de l'auditeur, but I like your phrasing:'Qu'est-ce-que tu racontes?' "Racontes" can also mean 'saying', and "what say you" is very close in English to "what are you saying?" "Qu'est-ce que vous dites?" would be literal, but is a tad too formal.
I was not striving as much for dismissal as for familiarity, almost the dialectical. Avez-vous creuser il?
Exactly as you say, it is difficult to convey an American nuance implying challenge, which is simply done by transposing the position of subject and verb and dropping the compound form; into French, where the proper word meaning must be selected to convey a subtlety!
Thanks for creating a fascinating (to me, at least) little aside!
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The speed of light and mass
