The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #40957   Message #589023
Posted By: GUEST,Santa's little helper
09-Nov-01 - 12:02 PM
Thread Name: Help: Speak French? Pls translate phrase
Subject: RE: Help: Speak French? Pls translate phrase
OK Malcolm, if you're willing to give it a go, I'll PM you! Thanks.

Mark, thank you for the suggestion, but I don't trust Babel Fish for common phrases that may not translate literally. For example, I tried to have it translate "thank you very much" into Spanish and got "gracias mucho" instead of the proper "muchas gracias" (reason: "muchas gracias" literally means "many thanks"). And asking for a Spanish translation of "Who are you?" got me a three-word phrase in three different tenses!

So, I think it's safer to ask people who know the language and its idioms and idiosyncrasies, in order to make sure the French version of the phrase in question will be accurate. As Malcolm says, there are several people here who are up to the task – Canadian 'catters and maybe others too. If anyone else cares to take a stab at this, please sign up!

Santa's Little Helper