French Translation Please

[milly143]

Was always rubbish at French and don't want to use the net.

Can someone please translate the following for me.

Have a fantastic trip! Bring me back something pretty. Love you.

(It's for my 12 year old neice so please don't change it to anything that might be rude).

Thanks!

[milly143]

ha ha Paul. Ever seen Cyanide and Happyness?

[pa___ul3]

aye I love them! Funny as hell!

[milly143]

Having watched that cartoon, I thought they might be up your street.

[pa___ul3]

well I'm not sure how to take that!! ;) ha! I appreciate the depth in superficiality!

[Ankou]

after reading all this i am certainly glad you used mollys post. marks all seemed rather rude.

ok, maybe not rude. but certainly arrogant.

[nightmare]

Ankou, you consider it rude / arrogant of Markrae (as someone who actually knows what he is talking about) to point out, yet again, that the answers given were simply not correct ?
If you want to make a complete idiot of yourself, go ahead and use online translators. As Mark (and I) have repeatedly pointed out, they are worse than useless.

[Ankou]

i was merely reflectin on the nature of the approach, rather than the content.

but whatever you say, i don't really give a tosh, but please don't call me an idiot. it makes you look very very stupid.

over and out.

[joggerjayne]

Isn't "fantastique" in French mure suggestive of ... macabre, perhaps?

I'm just thinking of the Symphonie Fantastique.

If someone had a "fantastique" journey, might it not involve hallucinations and ghosts?

Just wondered.

[nightmare]

Ankou, my apologies.
I was not calling you an idiot. I was merely pointing out that anyone who takes the output of an online translator as an accurate translation is.

[Ankou]

point noted and apology accepted nightmare.

however, there is a difference between advising someone of the pitfall, inaccuracies and unreliability of online translations, and arrogantly calling them an idiot.

i'm sure you can see that, night night.

[DTCwordfan]

yes jayne, MR used merveilleux, I would have used incroyable.....splitting hairs at this point....as is most of this thread. Hilarious for those interested in lingos, I bet.

[MarkRae]

Correct, Jayne. Fantastique very rarely conveys excellent, unless you're using an online "service"...;)

[Euphemia]

M.R. May I recommend the Institut Français for a refresher course?

[milly143]

Really no offence intended Paul! I think they are hilarious and they have the same sort of inappropriate adult humour.

Oh god. Who's right, who's wrong? There was a French lady posting on here a week or so ago who's English was better than mine. I bet she'd put you all right. :o)

[turast]

If you looked up ramener & rapporter separately in “Le Petit Robert”, you might come away with the impression that ramener should be used for bringing back people, and rapporter for bringing back objects. There is a kind of etymological truth to that, in that mener comes from Xth Century Latin minare = pousser, mener les bêtes en les menaçant Latin Minari menacer = threaten. Porter comes from classical Latin portare = to carry. HOWEVER we are talking USAGE here, and as Jean-Paul Colin points out in his excellent Dictionnaire des Difficultés du français,

“Ramener ou Rapporter. Emploi. Le même problème d’emploi se pose pour la plupart des composés de mener et de porter. On constate que ramener tend à l’emporter sur l’autre verbe, et maint bon écrivain l’emploie même avec un complément non animé : J’ai ramené les poupées de chez les Indiens (Breton). Je ramenai la majeure partie du trésor dans la chambre de Frédie. (Bazin). Une flamme vacillante se reflétait dans la bibliothèque ramenée d’Argelouse” (Mauriac)

[Euphemia]

Many thanks!

[turast]

Collins/Robert gives
ramener
vt Personne,objet to bring back, take back; paix ordre to bring back restore
Je vais te ramener en voiture I’ll drive you back home
ramène du pain / les enfants bring / fetch some bread/the children back
l’hiver ramène les accidents winter brings the return of accidents

remmener
vt to take back / bring back
remmener qn chez lui to take somebody back home
remmener qn à pied to walk somebody back
remmener qn en voiture to drive somebody back

rapporter
vt (apporter) objet, souvenir, réponse to bring back
rapporter qqch à qqn. to bring/take sth back to sb

The problem is the perrenial one of Eng-Fr translation. The English “bring me back something pretty” is completely clear in its meaning, but grammatically short circuited. The thing being brought = something pretty. It’s not literally being brought back though, because that would mean it was originally in place in England. It’s the person who is coming back, and the pretty thing will be brought TO me on their return. The French prefixes r-, re-, ra- are not really fully capable of expressing this idea. “Apporte-moi quelque chose de joli en rentrant” would fully express that idea. However, in my previous post, there are several examples of writers being more lax with these concepts. Furthermore, at GCSE level, I would expect examiners to prefer (r)apporter for objects and (ra)mener / remmener for people, because it’s a kind of rule. I expect that if you asked 10 French people, 4 would use porter, 4 would use mener, and the other 2 would express it equally as succinctly in some other way. BTW I prefer “Bisous” as a sign-off in this kind of familiar message.

P.S. I have a degree in advanced pedantry.

[MarkRae]

You are 100% correct. Take / bring are very difficult to translate because, as mentioned, not even native English speakers use them consistently.

In French, ramener and remmener can both mean to take back and to bring back according to context. Apporter and rapporter add extra subtle nuances. The distinction between animate and inanimate objects is, I think, a bit of a red herring. Calling it "GCSE French" is probably the kindest way of dealing with it!

[Sir Alec]

to quote Ian Dury, There ain't alf been some clever bastards!

[MarkRae]

C'est si bon, ummm, ist es nicht?