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"I am well" in French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5619 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes  Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish | Message 1 of 8 10 May 2009 at 8:09am | IP Logged | |||||
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edit: wanted to delete Edited by Paskwc on 19 May 2009 at 1:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gatsby Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6104 days ago 57 posts - 129 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Dutch | Message 2 of 8 10 May 2009 at 9:15am | IP Logged | |||||
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Paskwc,
Your Pimsleur program is correct. One uses "Je vais bien" to express the English "I am well." Remember, you can't translate word-for-word from one language to another. Each language has it's own way/words for expressing ideas. Bonne continuation. Pam 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5619 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish | Message 4 of 8 10 May 2009 at 8:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hi again,
Thanks for the clarification. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Toufik18 Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Algeria Joined 5686 days ago 188 posts - 202 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written)*, Arabic (classical)*, French, English | Message 5 of 8 11 May 2009 at 3:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Both are correcte, it's like in ENG, I am well and I am doing well
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| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5953 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 6 of 8 11 May 2009 at 8:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Actually, a very similar idiom exists in some varieties of English:
How's it going? is a literal translation of Comment ca va? (and its Italian equivalent Come vai?) which has been naturalised into English. Which actually means you're unlikely to say "je vais bien", because they don't normally ask how you are going, but how it is going. "Je vais bien" is generally presented in an attempt to seem grammatical. You'll probably just say "bien". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| charlmartell Super Polyglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6186 days ago 286 posts - 298 votes Speaks: French, English, German, Luxembourgish*, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 7 of 8 12 May 2009 at 7:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
1. How's it going? Don't forget German "Wie geht's?". As English is closer to German than to French and Italian.... 2. Your Italian Come vai? means: "How are you going?", not "How's it going?" And "How are you?" is usually rendered in Italian as "Come stai?"
If someone asks you in English "How are you?" the usual answer is a short: "Fine", not "I'm fine". Same in French. But the original poster asked for the translation into French of the whole expression "I'm fine". Which is "Je vais bien" (gallicisme). He did not ask for the answer to the question: Comment vas-tu? or: Comment ça va? As for "Je suis bien" that's more like saying: I'm comfortable. Je suis bien = je suis à l'aise, je me sens bien 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6381 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 8 of 8 12 May 2009 at 8:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
Indeed: "Come stai?" is the most common form, and "come va?" is fairly common. I've never heard "come vai?" in my entire life. Edited by Volte on 12 May 2009 at 8:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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