Translation English-French

livvie · Post by **livvie** » 17 Mar 2007 16:25

Hello,

I'm new to this forum and already asking for help!! I am English and living in France. I am working on a friends book and obvisouly I'm going to have someone French proofread my translation but I wanted to try to do as much as possible myself. I am translating the book from english to french and although I have already worked on translations from french to english this is my first the other way round!! The book is about an artists daily painting project. Each painting has a short description of the mood at the time, or the motivation for choosing that particular subject on that particular day.

The following phrases are giving me a bit of a problem and I would be very, very grateful if someone could help me out!! Well here goes:

- '100 days in the making'
- 'an all round good egg' (when referring to someone)
- 'I am not an traditionally angst ridden artist, just a rather happy one'

Thanks in advance and I hope to hear from you soon.

Livvie

ANTHOS · Post by **ANTHOS** » 17 Mar 2007 17:16

Hello Livvie

Welcome to the forum ! I'm also a native English speaker living in France. I'll get the ball rolling by translating into French (because the sentences are far from straight-forward), and then I'm sure that a Francophone will be along to confirm/correct/improve. I'm not sure of the equivalent idiomatic expression for sentence two.

Andréas

Cent jours dans sa conception

Quelqu'un de foncièrement bien

Je ne suis pas un artiste angoissé, comme le veut la tradition, juste un artiste heureux

livvie · Post by **livvie** » 17 Mar 2007 17:38

Thanks for getting back to me. It's sentence number two that is causing me the most trouble as well!!

tom · Post by **tom** » 17 Mar 2007 18:31

I'd suggest:

Cent jours dans sa conception

Quelqu'un de foncièrement bien

Je ne suis pas un artiste angoissé, comme le veut la tradition, juste un artiste heureux

livvie · Post by **livvie** » 17 Mar 2007 18:46

Hello,

For the phrase 'an all round good egg' what do you think about the expression 'une bonne pâte'?

ANTHOS · Post by **ANTHOS** » 17 Mar 2007 22:21

Tout à fait, merci Tom, un peu honte à moi - j'étais un peu pressé

Dada · Post by **Dada** » 21 Mar 2007 01:47

livvie wrote: For the phrase 'an all round good egg' what do you think about the expression 'une bonne pâte'?
:

It depends on the level of language of the english expression.
Bonne pate sounds way more familiar to me than Foncierement bien.

miju · Post by **miju** » 21 Mar 2007 11:31

bonne pate sous entend quelqu'un d'un peu mou, que l'on manoeuvre aisément ou qui se laisse conduire facilement; alors que foncièrement bien dénote un caractère plus affirmé.

Ceci à mon humble avis.

livvie · Post by **livvie** » 21 Mar 2007 18:41

Thanks for your help and Hello to friends who might be passing!!!

Just to let you know that for the moment the latest is as follows :

- '100 days in the making'
- 'an all round good egg' (when referring to someone)
- 'I am not an traditionally angst ridden artist, just a rather happy one'

- 100 jours de création
- cette personne foncièrement bonne
- Je suis loin d’être la traditionnelle artiste angoissé, juste une artiste heureuse.

Thanks again, it is nice to know that there is someone out there to bounce ideas off!!!

Write to you soon I'm sure!

claudine · Post by **claudine** » 28 Mar 2007 16:32

Une idée sur an all round good egg:

Un chic type/ nana/fille .
Je trouve que l'expression Anglaise est un peu viellote... est-ce juste moi?C'est pour cela que jepropose chic type.

'I am not an traditionally angst ridden artist, just a rather happy one'

Je nesuis pas un de ces traditionnels artistes tourmentés, je suis plutot un artiste heureux.

livvie · Post by **livvie** » 30 Mar 2007 19:18

Thanks for allyour help to date, I'm off to England for a couple of weeks and then I'm sure you'll find me seeking help when I return. 50% of the book has been translated another 50 pages to go!!!

Livvie