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French locution: ce que c’est que... | ||
Tags: Meaning of words | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| hster Newbie Sweden Joined 4808 days ago 10 posts - 11 votes Speaks: Italian | Message 1 of 5 30 April 2011 at 7:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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One of Montesquieu's chapter titles is:
Ce que c'est que la vertu dans l'etat politique And one of the translators renders this: What is meant by virtue in a political state Now how does he get this translation? My French is rusty, but not too bad; but I have been putting off getting these ce, c'est, ce que etc locutions square in my mind. I would translate this as: This that this is that the virtue in the political state But that of course is nonsense. Can anybody clear this up for me? Thanks. Edited by hster on 30 April 2011 at 7:17pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jinx Triglot Senior Member Germany reverbnation.co Joined 5474 days ago 1085 posts - 1879 votes  Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish | Message 2 of 5 30 April 2011 at 9:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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(Not a native or even advanced speaker here, but...)
"Ce que c'est" is sort of like "which is" or "that which is." 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| pitwo Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5940 days ago 103 posts - 121 votes Speaks: French*, English | Message 3 of 5 01 May 2011 at 5:46am | IP Logged | ||
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Apparently the title for the chapter is "CE QU'EST LA VERTU DANS L'ETAT POLITIQUE".
Literally : This/that which is vertue in a political state. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hster Newbie Sweden Joined 4808 days ago 10 posts - 11 votes Speaks: Italian | Message 4 of 5 01 May 2011 at 9:48am | IP Logged | ||
I don't know where you got that. There were a bunch of revisions by the author, but I have checked two different versions and in both the title is: Ce que c’est que la vertu dans l’état politique. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5162 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 5 of 5 02 May 2011 at 6:12am | IP Logged | ||
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I think that was an appropriate translation. The phrase "Qu'est-ce que + nom" equals "What is + noun?".
Remove the inversion, add ce and you've got a weird but correct slightly more emphatic version of it. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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