Printer-friendly version
Author:
Taxonomy upgrade extras:
I need help again, but this time to translate a simple phrase to French. The phrase is, "Welcome to France sir, may I help you?" This will take place at an information booth at an airport in France. I might need additional translations, but I'm not sure yet. Arecee
Comments
here you go
"Bienvenue à monsieur France, puis-je vous aider?"
Hugs,
Jenna De FL
Modérateur / Sous la direction de
Topshelf BigCloset
Hugs,
Jenna From FL
Moderator/Editor
TopShelf BigCloset
It is a long road ahead but I will finally become who I should be.
ack, not quite :)
"Bienvenue en France, monsieur. Puis-je vous aider?"
translation
even google translator is not perfect.
Hugs,
Jenna From FL
Moderator/Editor
TopShelf BigCloset
Hugs,
Jenna From FL
Moderator/Editor
TopShelf BigCloset
It is a long road ahead but I will finally become who I should be.
Thank you
I might be bugging you some more, Arecee
Welcome to France
Likewise, I was going to suggest Google translate
Bienvenue à France monsieur, puis-je vous aider? is my take on this.
One thing about online translators is that they are very literal, and tend to work word-by-word, rather than dealing with phrases.
A good test is to translate to another language, then translate back again. Is this result the same as what you started with? At least back-translating my take gives the original question.
Patois Simple
Bike Archive
Bike Resources
Je peux vous aider?
'Puis-je' is of course quite correct. But I think that it is a little 'written' French. The French are as idle as we are and in spoken French I think they would simply ask 'Je peux vous aider?' with a slight rising inflection as befits a question.
Accompanied of course by a delicate arching of the eyebrows.
P.S. I have just had that rarest of things, a thought. If your character is going to go globe trotting then you should be aware that, with typical Gallic perverseness, en is only used for feminine countries, en Angleterre, en Australie, en Nouvelle ZÄ—lande etc. But au Canada, aux Etats-Unis. How on earth you determine the sex of a country, particularly beforehand, is beyond me. You will have to consult with someone who really knows what they are talking about.
I agree, fleurie
I've never understood why some languages seem to find the need to attribute gender to inanimate objects. In fact some objects can have either gender in French eg bicycle can be either feminine (la Bicyclette) or masculine (le velo) ... at least French doesn't go as far as having neuter words like German or Latin.
Once saw a game show on French TV in which contestants were required to identify the gender of various relatively unusual words - a lot of them made mistakes :)
Robi