Re: The Future of Young Adult Fiction?

Zeborah <zeborah@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Jonathan L Cunningham <spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Returning to French: I was also wondering what "je vous aime" could mean
(in a situation where "vous" isn't a plural). I can think of a number of
possibilities, some of which would not translate easily into English
without using a lot more words or setting up the scene carefully.

A century or so ago "je vous aime" was a perfectly appropriate way for a
gentleman to make known to a young lady the feelings of respectful
devotion he had for her. I know it's used in Cyrano de Bergerac.

These days, "vous" in the singular is becoming less and less used among
the younger generation anyway for casual conversation; I'd be rather
surprised even by "Vous aimer? Je ne te connais même pas!"(1)

Is that a typo for "vous aimez" (unlikely) or "vous aime" (missing
subject)?

I'm not being picky, it's just that I don't know if that is correct
idiom or a typo, and I'm interested because:

My current insane writing exercise is trying to translate an 18th
century French novel into English (well, as much as I can unless/until I
lose interest). And idiomatic, literary French is turning out to be a
challenge -- particularly since I don't read French!!

I can sort of get the gist of technical French (in an IT context, say)
and can read about half the words in "ordinary" French (words like
"you", "have", "be" etc. <g>) -- enough to realise somebody did or said
something to somebody for some reason...

I hated translation at school: I wasn't much good at it and it wasn't
interesting. I think it's because this exercise I've set myself is so
difficult (for me) that I'm finding it fun. Also, that I can use Google
to translate (i.e. badly mangle) one sentence or paragraph at a time
(also Systran, if I want a second opinion), plus there are a number of
on-line dictionaries (and I have a couple of paper dictionaries, but
nothing really large enough).

It would be less fun if Google weren't so bad at it. Google knows more
words than I do (but nowhere near all) and it often gets the subject of
the sentence completely wrong (it doesn't know about verb agreement, or
realise that object pronouns generally come before the verb in French).
But it also knows some idiomatic phrases and slang which I wouldn't
otherwise guess (although I suspect Google's "she fucked his hands"
should really be "she kissed his hands" in context... (I have been
assured by a retired French teacher that "baiser" really does have that
slang meaning, so it's not that Google is f***ed :-) -- it's just
hopeless at picking the right translation.)

Added to that is the fun of guessing what obselete words mean... "fusil"
for example, which three dictionaries (and Google) all agree means
"gun".

He hit the gun and lit a candle.

I'm fairly sure the characters, although soldiers, do not have any guns
with them: they are off duty, it's peace time, guns are heavy and I
can't see them lugging them around. How do you light a candle by hitting
a gun anyway?

My first guess was that "fusil" was an obsolete word for "match":

He struck a match and lit a candle.

But a bit of Wikipedia research reveals that matches hadn't been
invented yet. I guessed it was flint, as in a tinderbox, flint-and-steel
etc. (And then a *fourth* dictionary revealed that "fusil" also meant
"steel" - although the modern word for steel is different.)

I'm not sure how to phrase that in modern English though, anyway, so
I've left "struck a match" in as an anachronism for the moment. It reads
better: but it's bugging me still <g>.

I'd never make a living at this; it can take me half an hour to do one
paragraph - particularly when the orignal French has word-play and puns
and (obvious) jokes. (I wonder how many allusions I'm missing?) I did
say it was an insane writing exercise, but trying to pick *exactly* the
best (often there is no "right") English word, or word order, is forcing
me to think a lot more about my own writing.

I think this is even more marked precisely *because* I can't really
understand the French (Google is nowhere near good enough that its
translation is more than another hint). So I'm forced to consider
several, possibly contradictory, interpretations in the context of the
story. I also suspect Deliberate Ambiguity, which, if true, is an
interesting point. I usually try to write so as to eliminate ambiguity,
not introduce it deliberately.

Last night's big new word was "pourpoint". I can't remember how I solved
it: I think I used the French Wiktionary. (And then had to check some of
the words of the definition, which was in French of course, in a
French-English dictionary!) Followed by a (French) google image search
to see what one looked like...

I expect a lot of francophones here already knew the word, given the
general level of interest in history and pseudo-medieval costume.

Hmmm. Another question: how to translate "valet de chambre"? A *female*
"femme de chambre" is a chamber-maid. This is the male equivalent. The
phrase still exists in modern French for hotel staff: what do you call a
male chamber-maid in English?

Jonathan
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