Translation - French-English - C'est lors d'un de ces moments si délicieux, un...

J'ai un doute sur la traduction de "son équilibre mental est en jeu" par "his mental balance is a game".Ici "en jeu" sous-entend que l'auteur peut perdre son équilibre mental s'il ne réagit pas.Peut on le traduire par "one in wich his mental balance is a game i paint"?

Bonjour Alexis! Il aurait fallu une virgule après "jeu, ainsi "jeu" ne serait pas considéré comme complément d'objet de "j'ai peint". Si je comprends bien le texte, ce qu'a peint celui qui écrit, c'est "l'un de ces moments si délicieux"?

Il faut faire attention à bien taper le texte à traduire, si vous ne voulez pas qu'il y ait méprise sur son sens.

Hi Tzicu! "être en jeu" is different from "être un jeu". Here it means the guy's mental health is at stake.

Désolé d'avoir survolé le texte avant de faire ce commentaire ci-dessus : c'est bien l'équilibre mental mental qui est peint, donc pas besoin de virgule! . Par ailleurs je vois que Tzicu-Sem a rectifié avec l'expression adéquate.

Bonne fin de journée!

Merci, Francky.

merci Francky et Tzicu-sem : )

Hi Tzicu,
Please have a second look at your translation, it seems to me that there are some misunderstandings and the syntax is a bit confusing, specially in the first sentence.

Lilian is right, actually "the unbearable" is what was painted, so I think it has to be : "Than I painted the unbearable..." (no comma nor semi column after "I painted" French uses parts of sentence separated by commas to separate propositions, so is the purpose of the depiction (...", par vengeance et pour faire mal,"...)

I personally would use another comma after "jeu", just to avoid this misunderstanding. :

C'est lors d'un de ces moments si délicieux, un de ceux où son équilibre mental est en jeu, que j'ai peint, par vengeance et pour faire mal, l'insoutenable ..."

I understand that what is "at stake" is the mental balance ('sanity' would be better)

I'd render the line as:

"It was during one of those so delicious moments, one of those where his sanity is at stake, I painted, for revenge and to hurt, the unbearable ... "

Ne vous y trompez pas = Don't be fooled

I don't get that: "the spit of an animal that is breaking free, the spit that comforts,..."

So I was wrong in my 3 April 2010 16:32 post whan I told the object was "the mental balance that was at stake".

I apologize as I might have been the one who generated some confusion in the understanding of the text...

It is not a real painting, but some written depiction about the painting, and so the spit of an animal trying to get its freedom back is of course (you guessed it) metaphoric...

In French, we say, for instance, cats spit, which is not really spitting, but this expression is nevertheless used in French. Cats "spit" ("crachent" when they are afraid and are feeling to run away from something

Unfortunately (for me), I'm even more confused now...

The painter is explaining his work.
He painted a guy wearing a suit and a tie, this outfit is something very agressive to him, he hates it.

So he painted the symbolism of his feelings about what it represents to him, using the metaphoric way.

What I was wrong about, (my fault), was to consider "mental balance" as the object of "I painted". What he painted is "the unbearable", so the semi-column after "painted" is to be taken off, and the sentence is to be built in a slightly different way, just as Lilian proposed above.

and herunder : "It was during one of those so delicious moments, one of those where his sanity is at stake, I painted, for revenge and to hurt, the unbearable ... "

Hope it is more clear to you now Tzicu?

Yes Francky, I understand now and I've made some changes. Thanks.
However, to me the tense of the first part of the text seems to be in the past, so I believe that the tense should stay in the past till the full stop. And I'm not sure about your suggestion for 'revenge'.
Also, aobut 'the spit'; is it actualy describing the struggle that takes place when trying to free itself? If so, I doubt there's an equivalent for it in English.

"est en jeu" : "is at stake"


About spit, if "crachat" is used in French, I don't think it is translatable by "spit" (literally); yes, you must find a suitable term for it in the target language. I must say I don't know, the only person I know who could help with that is Tantine, and she didn't connect here since the 19th of March!

Maybe IanMegill2 could help, as he's fluent in both French and English.

Ian? What do you suggest?

CC: IanMegill2

It's almost perfect!
I would change "autophagous" which, although it officially exists in English, most likely wouldn't be understood by the common man. We would usually say "self-consuming" here instead.
Other small additions:
vengeance
unbearable one
most harmless
spitting
Apart from the small points above, a very good translation!

Bonjour,
tu as raison Francky5591 il faut une virgule après le mot jeu.

Merci tout le monde pour vos efforts : )

Alexis.