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Translation - French-English - C'est un "pas du tout", plus qu' un "je t'aime un peu"Current status Translation
Category Poetry - Love / Friendship | C'est un "pas du tout", plus qu' un "je t'aime un peu" | |
C'est un "pas du tout", plus qu'un "je t'aime un peu";
C'est marcher solitaire parmi la foule;
C'est ne jamais se contenter d'être content;
C'est croire qu'on gagne à se perdre;
C'est vouloir prison volontaire;
C'est servir qui vainc le vainqueur;
C'est être loyal à celui qui nous tue;
Mais comment sa faveur peut-elle apporter
En nos coeurs humains l'amitié
Quand l'amour est si contraire à lui-même? | Remarks about the translation | Le premier vers fait allusion à l'effeuillage de la marguerite (Bem me quer)
Coidar = cuidar ?
J'ai pris un peu de licence poétique, notamment en modifiant l'emploi de l'article défini par rapport au texte de départ (deux derniers vers p. ex.)
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| It’s « loves me not », not « loves me » ; | TranslationEnglish
Translated by  CocoT | Target language: English
It’s "loves me not", more than "loves me some";
It’s walking alone in a crowd;
It’s never being content with being content;
It’s believing that we win by losing ourselves;
It’s voluntary imprisonment;
It’s servitude to the vanquisher of the victor;
It’s loyalty to the bringer of our demise;
But how can its favor bring
Friendship to our human hearts
When love is so contrary to itself?
| Remarks about the translation | - Based on the French translation
- Unlike French, English only has two "stages" - "loves me" / "loves me not"... this reduced choices somewhat :P
- I preferred not putting the article before "loves me (not)", I thought it sounded better without it.
- Obviously, the "he" can also be a "she"... I found that even though the pronoun is sexually marked, it is in fact "neutral". Possible transformation could be "to the one who". "His" favor, as I assumed the poem still referred to "he/the one who". French of course does not have that problem :)
- I first translated "nous tue" by "kills us", then changed it by "brings our demise". I wasn't sure the initial language was actually that strong.
- "When love contradicts itself" might be another option |
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Validated by kafetzou - 27 January 2007 01:16
Last messages | | | | |
26 January 2007 19:50 | | | 4 people think that this translation is good, and 9 people (!) think it is bad, I personaly think it is good, and I would like some argumentation from both parts, in order to let the "validator", who knows french but isn't sure about the source language, do his job correctly and neither validate a bad translation, nor refuse a good one.
I think we don't have to care too much about if it is "it loves me" in english and "je t'aime" in french, as there must be some variants relative to the country they are coming from, so no matter it is "kikeriki" or "cock a doodle-doo", or "cocorico", as the flower has got no more petals at the final, and this translation has got to be validated one of these days.
Anyway, this is useless just telling if a translation is good or bad if no one can explain why it is . | | |
26 January 2007 19:52 | | | It is good mostly, but to be faithful to the original meaning, I would change this two frases this way:
...
It’s "loves me not", not "loves me";
for
It’s "loves me not", more than "loves me";
...
It’s loyalty to he who brings our demise;
for
It’s loyalty to he who brings our death;
or even
It’s loyalty to he who kills us;
* The verb "matar" means "to kill", it is that strong, indeed ( "ele mata" = "he kills" ). But it's not clear if what kills is the lover or the love itself. So, maybe, it could be said:
It’s loyalty to what brings our death; | | |
27 January 2007 01:16 | | | I've made another edit to the English. "demise" was better than "death" - it means the same thing, but it's more poetic - and the use of -er eliminates the gender problem, except for the final "seu", which I think should be "it", as it seems to refer to love itself. | | |
27 January 2007 01:26 | | | Sounds good to me writen this way!
Thanks for the english lesson! | | |
27 January 2007 01:34 | | | You're welcome - as always!  | | |
27 January 2007 10:29 | | 
CocoTNumber of messages: 165 | Yes, nice way to avoid the gender issue, kafetzou, thanks
Wow, initially 9 "bad" and 4 "good", that was pretty tough... but, yeah, I understand how not using the original version did not play in my favor. I'm wondering, though, shouldn't the French then also be changed slightly, too, in the first line? | | |
27 January 2007 11:16 | | | You're right, I edited the french version as well after reading your last post. Thanks! | | |
27 January 2007 11:18 | |
CocoTNumber of messages: 165 | | | |
27 January 2007 16:13 | | | I think this happens often when people translate from a version that hasn't been accepted yet. | | |
27 January 2007 16:40 | |
CocoTNumber of messages: 165 | Oh... But, if I was able to see it, didn't that mean that it had been accepted? (this is a real question, I'm a bit confused) | | |
28 January 2007 00:31 | | | No - it might just have been translated, but not accepted yet. | | |
28 January 2007 18:49 | |
CocoTNumber of messages: 165 | |
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