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Translation of French comic book passage | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Spinchäeb Ape Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4473 days ago 146 posts - 180 votes  Speaks: English*, German | Message 1 of 4 31 March 2013 at 7:28am | IP Logged | ||||||||
A friend from France sent me a comic book from there while I sent her an American movie (in PAL format). My French is still very basic, which makes the context created by the illustrations very helpful. I've translated a passage, but I want to make sure it's right. What's happening is a guy has fallen in love with his prostitute and he's pulled out a gun, demanding that she and he be married right away. Here's the passage:
With some help from Google Translate and my French/English dictionary, I've translated it as follows:
Is my translation accurate? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5535 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 4 31 March 2013 at 1:43pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Not bad! I might translate it as follows:
There's a nice subjunctive in that first sentence (the soit), thanks to permettre que, which takes a subjunctive verb in its subclause. Literally, you might translate it as:
The subjunctive continues in the second sentence (the continuiez), because the second que also goes with permettre. You can learn a lot of grammar from bandes dessinées! Edited by emk on 31 March 2013 at 3:21pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5433 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 3 of 4 02 April 2013 at 6:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The suggested translations are not bad but I think the use of the verb "permit" is a tad formal and makes for a slightly awkward feel. My suggestion would be along the following lines:
I will not let her body be defiled by others. Nor that you continue lining your pockets on her back. You bunch of dirty pimps. The subjunctive "be" is still in there, although it is debatable whether that really is a subjunctive. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5535 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 4 03 April 2013 at 3:05pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I was curious about the form let X be…, so I looked it up in The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CGEL), which is a massive doorstop of a book written by actual linguists, and which I prize for its habit of supporting its claims with actual evidence. I looked up let X be… in the section on the subjunctive, and it wasn't anywhere on the list of verbs which often take a "mandative subjunctive". So I decided to do the grammatical analysis by hand. Let's start with a few examples of the mandative subjunctive:
You can see several features of the English subjunctive here: 1. The third-person singular uses be, or a verb without the normal -s inflection of the third person singular. 2. Negation places not before the verb without any accompanying do. 3. The subject takes a nominative form (he and not him). But what about let? Let's try some examples:
The negation in example (vi) feels a little bit forced. But the real giveaway here is the use of him in each sentence. This doesn't happen in any of (i–iii), or in any other kind of subjunctive subclause. So this suggests that let him be/run is a completely different construction, and not a real subjunctive. And CGEL treats it as such, filing it under what they call the "complex cantenative construction," where a verb takes both an object (the him) and a non-finite clause. Incidentally, this kind of complex grammatical analysis is why I'm such a huge fan of extensive reading and listening. At some point, it's easier for me to pick up rules like this through massive exposure than it is for me to memorize them. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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