Anyone speak French? If so, I have a task.

[Milan Easton]

Hi guys,

My friend is writing a book, and would like a few lines that he's written in English translated to French.  If you speak French, could you please make a translation for the following phrases?  Thanks!

Translate from English to French:
-look again - (as in take another look at something)
-maybe, maybe not - (more of a saying than a translation)
-you're looking for a little girl, no?
-stop fighting/bickering! (something you'd say to children)
-Don't be such a baby. (but said in a nice way)
-Isn't it obvious?

[FatherGhostface]

- regard encore - (comme jetez dedans un autre coup d'oeil à quelque chose)
- peut-être, peut-être pas - (plus d'une énonciation qu'une traduction)
- vous recherchez une petite fille, non ?
- arrêtez fighting/bickering ! (quelque chose que vous diriez aux enfants)
- ne soyez pas un tel bébé (mais dit d'une manière gentille)
- n'est-il pas évident ?

[Wodball]

Ahhh... Google/Babelfish to the rescue...

Let's see how much French I remember from 3 years ago...

Maybe, maybe not- I'm not really sure if you can say "peut-être pas", but my French is pretty limited.

I'm sure it's easier to say to bickering children...

1. Arretez! (Just "stop" as a command should do)
or
2. Silence, enfants! ("Silence, children")
or
3. Taisez-vous! (The equivalent of "shut up"!)

All three assume that the character is addressing more than one person.

More options make for better variety, right?

Everything other phrase must be conjugated to either familiar or unfamiliar. While the computer translations provided are somewhat accurate (To be taken with a grain of salt since it is a computer translation) , they probably aren't what would be said between people who are familiar with each other. (I'm guessing if you were to call someone a baby in a nice way, it would be either a sarcastic comment or some sort of joke.) Friends would use the "tu" form of the pronoun rather than the "vous." Of course, if you are talking to more than one person in the 2nd person, it's always "vous" and all the fun conjugations that go with it.

I should probably let the native French speakers take over this...

[Steffi Evenstar]

alright - i asked Brandon, and this is what he came up with:

Regardez encore!
Peut-etre, peut-etre non
Vous cherchez pour une petite fille, non?
Ne vous vous battez pas!
Ne soyez pas une bébé!
Est-il évident?

hope that helps.  :)

[Milan Easton]

Thanks guys!  You rock!  I will let my friend know of your contributions...I am certain he'll be VERY appreciative...as am I.

Thanks again

Anonymous Game Developer #1

[Jenkins Loo]

Translate from English to French:
1)-look again - (as in take another look at something)
2)maybe, maybe not - (more of a saying than a translation)
3)you're looking for a little girl, no?
4)stop fighting/bickering! (something you'd say to children)
5)Don't be such a baby. (but said in a nice way)
6)Isn't it obvious?

1)When you say look again, is it about looking *at* someone/something ("regarder")? Or is it looking *for* someone/something, the keys for example ( in that case, it is "chercher" ). The english language knows two way of "looking".
2)Everyone is correct
3)"Petite fille" mean a female child. "Fille" means more a young ( beautiful in some case... ) woman than a child. If you use a "no", the translation could sounds like "Tu chercherais pas une petite fille?" or "Vous ne chercheriez pas une petite fille?", since I assume or am not sure you're looking for someone, I change the time of my sentence.
4)Stop fighting = Arrêtez de vous battre ( if your talking at two people or more if is two gangs at war ). Stop bickering = Arrêtez de vous disputer ( The tone of the voice of two people isn't polite polite or aren't respecting each other or even the unpleasant tone of voice )
5)I never heard about a nice way to say this sentence, but although "baby" mean "bébé", french people are more likely to say "Ne fais pas l'enfant" ( sounds more positive for you but I don't use this sentence since a very long time) instead of "Ne fais pas le bébé" ( sound more negative ).
6)"N'est-il pas évident?" sound like someone very rich talking (as if someone from high rank of the monarchy is talking). Better put "N'est-ce pas évident?", sounds more popular, you'll have a better success.

We don't have many occasions to use the last two sentences but since I don't meet lots of people, I may be mistaken.

Another question. When your people are talking, choose carefully between the both "you" that doesn't exist in the english language you wish to translate. How your characters are knowing between themselves? It will help to choose if the "Tu" or "Vous" is useful.

"Tu" = You're talking to one person in particuliar, you know this person since a long time, you know this person is respecting you, or rarely if you aren't afraid of having a small familiar talking to a townspeople ( "Tu as l'heure?" ) though this behavior is not recommended. Sometime, when you disregard politeness with someone you don't like, you can say "Fous moi la paix est-ce de petit ******* de mes ********! )
"Vous" = You're talking to a fireman, policeman, nurse, minister, mayor, your boss or someone important, you avoid familiar talking with a townspeople ( Excusez-moi, vous avez l'heure?" ), you do not talk a lot with someone or this person is distant and shy or you avoid using "tu" because you don't like this person, then the "vous" is needed.

Ask for help about translating in my foreign language anytime

[FatherGhostface]

Bablefish!? Oh please Kurdt, I take French classes twice a day ever since I was 10, and do you know how long it took me to write that?

[Broomie]

Bablefish!? Oh please Kurdt, I take French classes twice a day ever since I was 10, and do you know how long it took me to write that?

Kurdt, that's Wodball. They just have the same avatar coincidentally.

[Wodball]

By the by, I am sorry if I offended you, FatherGhostface.

It's just that your line concerning "fighting/bickering" was

"arrêtez fighting/bickering !"

When you enter in "Stop fighting/bickering" into the translator, you get "arrêtez fighting/bickering". Considering that the last part was in English rather than "battez-vous" or "se batte" or any other form of the reflexive, it seemed like you put it into a translator like Google "English to French." Also, reading the translations felt more like literal translations.

Perhaps I should have put a smiley next to that statement, since I meant no disrespect or offense to you. In any case, this is all a misunderstanding on my part, because I had no idea that you had taken French since you were 10. I'm not exactly what you would call a frequent poster and as I said before, it's been 3 years (or even more) since I've seriously used French in anything.

Also, this is not the same avatar... I won this one last year on the AGDI forums from a "Greek Island" contest, and have been using it ever since. It's the same as Kurdt's (he took runner up) except for the color. The contest poster explained that mine was "Dragon Frost" (Katrina's dragon killing spell in the last battle) and Kurdt's was "Dragon Fire" (Hero's powerful offensive spell).

[Broomie]

Well he's using the blue one at IA.

[Brainiac]

Yeah, Wodball, Kurdt's switched over to a Dragon Frost avatar as well; he got his from Matt of Matt's QG Site.  So I guess now you both have a version of the winning avatar from my old contest now.  You could always ask Matt for his Dragon Acid animation, though.

AGD1, are you still looking for other possible translations?  My sister took a lot of French in high school and college, so I can always ask her.

EDIT: Already asked her; she agrees with Jenkins Loo's assesment pretty much completely (with only a few subtle differences).

[Quest For Glory Fan]

I leave for 2 days and a topic comes up where I actually have some area of expertiese...stupid French being a first language (mutters Tabernac) Oh well looks like it's all settled

And FG 2 classes of french since you were 10 is a lot different than taking all of your classes in french for 10 years.  :p

Alas Had I seen this I probably wouldn't have responded because I know believe that French is the worst language ever. HOW THE HELL CAN A CHAIR BE FEMININE!? IS THEIR A MASCULIN CHAIR AROUND? My friends still don't like that I never remember the English word for microwave. 3 years ago I abandoned French and I don't even write it as a second language on my resume even though it is my first.

The worst part is that French in Canada is completly different from French in France and even at the top of my game I would never be able to go there and converse regularly with people.

The bottom line is that everyone in the world speaks English anyways and if they don't they should  ;)

[fluxmaster]

French is the worst language ever. HOW THE HELL CAN A CHAIR BE FEMININE!?

If I'm not mistaken, all Indo-European languages with the exception of English have gramatical gender, either two genders (Masculine and Feminne, or Common and Neuter) or three genders (Masculine, Feminine, and Neuter).  Does anyone know of any Indo-European language besides English that uses natural gender?

Also, French, like English and unlike many other languages, preserves the etymological spelling of words.  For example, "pharmacy" in Spanish is "farmacia," suggesting that it refers to agriculture.  "Hypothesis" is Italian is "ipotesi," loosing the "h" and mutating the "y" into "i" and the "th" into "t."  Both French and English preserve the etymological spellings, which preserves out links to the past.

The bottom line is that everyone in the world speaks English anyways . . .

. . . except in the United States.  Dial up any customer service number in the United States, and the first thing you will hear is, "For information in English, press one.  Para información en Español, marque el dos," and in some cases it is followed by Chinese, Vietnamese, and/or several other languages.

When I went to Iceland several years back, I tried to speak Icelandic to the locals, and everyone answered me back in English.  There are probably proportionally more people in Iceland that speak English than there are in the United States.

[Patzman]

Hi,
I intervene a little late, but, I am going to translate so that that corresponds in the context.


-look again - (as in take another look at something)
-maybe, maybe not - (more of a saying than a translation)
-you're looking for a little girl, no?
-stop fighting/bickering! (something you'd say to children)
-Don't be such a baby. (but said in a nice way)
-Isn't it obvious?

- Vérifies (verifiez) encore. (more than a single look)
- Peut-être, peut-être pas.
- Tu cherches (vous cherchez) une petite fille, non?
- Arrêtez de vous chamailler! (Chamaillerie ---> Bagarres + Disputes entre deux enfants)
- Ne fais pas le gamin (Vairiante, plus familier : Ne fais pas ton gamin)
Si c'est déjà adressé à un enfant ---> Ne fais pas le bébé.
- Ce n'est-il pas évident?, "Est-ce pas évident?" ou "Est-ce que ce n'est pas évident?" (Translate by Reverso)

[Quest For Glory Fan]

I think you would find a LOT higher population in America speaking English than you would in Iceland. Even in Canada where we have two official languages English/French I have only ever seen 3 other people EVER speaking French at home and generally all the time.

In America it would be less probable considering it has only English as it's official language and it is reccomended not required to take French in school. I live right on the border of Michigan and Ontario (Directly North of Bt actually) and the two are very simmilar but in Michigan All the signs are in English only and in ontario all the signs have both alnguages on them.

I might be responding a month late but I didn't see this untill now.

[Gronagor]

QFGF, have fun in your little world.
You obviously don't have a clue what's going on around you.

[Fribbi]

When I went to Iceland several years back, I tried to speak Icelandic to the locals, and everyone answered me back in English.  There are probably proportionally more people in Iceland that speak English than there are in the United States.

Well I think that happens when we sense that you don't speak our language correct and sense too you are not from our land. So we are just trying to be polite for you and helping you to speak to us without giving you to much embarassing problems when you are trying to speak to us in Iceland. And yes english language are the best way for outlanders visitors to communicate with us. But there could also be people in my land who don't understand English too. It happens.

I mean everybody know pretty well how to say someting in English. My mom doesn't know much in English but she can understand some words. I remember when I had a girl which speaks only danish my mother spoke to her always in icelandic and I had to translate for the danish girl what my mother was trying to say to her in English. I am getting much better in English in everyday thanks to old classis sierra games with thos old parser games and the world wide internet.

I really miss those parser game alot because I learned so much how to write english sentence with it. It kept me in practice.

When I was in Portugal I could only speak English to the locals but that is the only language I can speak to outlanders. It is much difficult to say something to outlanders on my language to get them to understand what I am trying to say to them.