Hi again everybody,
Sorry, I must have missed the one other major difference between the English and French (again, bearing in mind I don't read Brazilian!
). It was that the English
Still far away from home
is in the French translation, literally
It's not your home anymore
which I think may
actually mean
Your home is not there anymore
This seems to make the most sense, because it is
followed by
Nothing but a cove now
i.e. all together, the meaning is "Your house is gone, and now there's only a cove where your house once stood."
Hmm...caspertavernello? Judgment, please?
--
Oh, with the latest suggestions from caspertavernello and Thathavieira, maybe that line about the hills should read
As far as the eye can see, beyond the steep hills
or even
Further than anyone can see, beyond the steep hills
?
In Quebec, there is a similar expression "perdre de vue," which means "to lose sight of," often because the object you're trying to see has moved too far away. So I think I know what you mean, if these two expressions are similar in meaning.
--
To Urunghai (and anybody else who cares!) about the expression of the future tense:
Confusion would arise in the mind of someone who only could read English, because "going to...," to a native English speaker, simply indicates a future tense to the verb following it, i.e.
"I'm going to eat"
doesn't mean
"I'm going to go somewhere and eat"
but rather it's just another way of saying
"I will eat"
with a little more certainty.
Maybe you can consider it this way:
"I'm going to eat" is, say, 90% sure that you will eat.
"I will eat" might be about 80% sure (or something like that).
That's why we don't usually say
"I guess I'm going to..."
if we are talking about a possibility we are considering undertaking, but rather
"I guess I'll..."
You see how the "I'll" (will) form for the future has a more "tentative" feel to it...
When I teach English here in Japan, the following percentages are a very rough guide to the tentative <--> certain nuances:
I will meet John tomorrow (80%? )
I'm going to meet John tomorrow (90%? )
I'm meeting John tomorrow (95%? )
You see how all these ways of saying so mean the same thing, with just increasing levels of certainty...
Maybe!
So Urunghai, you said:
>I'm a little bit confused about the "ira te
>joindre" though.
>If "Qui va te joindre" means something like
>"Who's going to join you?", I'd say "Qui ira te
>joindre?" means "Who will be going to join you?"
Exactly!
Qui va te joindre = Who will (or, is going to) join you
Qui ira te joindre = Who will go (to where you are) and join you
"Qui s'en va te joindre" would be "Who
is on his way to join you?"
(lit. Who is
going to join you? but as I said before, this would be confusing for someone who only understood English.)
Small differences in form can indicate
significant differences in meaning sometimes, as is true in perhaps every language in the world...
So I guess everybody is
sick of my
explaining now!
But at least you can see you much I love language!
CC: casper tavernello Urunghai