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Words that can not be translated

 Poster: A snowHead
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pam w wrote:
Quote:

I'd translate that with "clearly' or "shurely"

Nope. I have learnt the hard way that if someone says, for example that "normalement" the new piste will be opening in December 2011 it means "well, it was kind of planned to be opening in December 2011 but all kinds of contingencies could mean that actually it won't, so don't hold us to it".


Can't see any difficulty with using normally in that sentence.

Normally the piste will be open in December 2011.

In other words if all goes to plan.

Should be would probably be better though.

Same for the other example given.
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Quote:

Normally the piste will be open in December 2011

you've been in France too long, davidof. I can't imagine any native English speaker saying that about a new piste. My example of the opening of a new piste was maybe not a good one - I had in mind an actual new piste here in Les Saisies; they'd felled quite a few trees last October, given a coup de bull to some lumps and bumps but needed to build 2 road bridges. I was told that "normalement" the piste would be open for Christmas 2011. But there was some local administrative hassle about the bridges, and it wasn't (they're building them right now).

So yes, "the new piste should be open before Christmas" or "if all goes to plan the new piste will be open before Christmas" - absolutely fine. But "normally the new piste will open for the first time before Christmas" - absolutely not.

In English we use "normally" for something that is habitual (where the French would often use d'habitude). So we might say "normally (d'habitude) all the pistes are open at Christmas but this year the snow was so late that most of them were closed till New Year". But I don't think a native english speaker would ever use "normally" about something which has never happened but might - or should - happen in the future.
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It took some time for us to 'beat out of' The french language assistant that stayed with us this year that normalement didn't make sense translated as normally - We reached an understanding that it translated most commonly as 'I expect that'
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For me the problem with 'normalement' is it is used to express varying degrees of certitude depending on who's saying it and what they're talking about. e.g 'I expect that' but also 'I hope so', 'yes unless something utterly bizarre happens', 'possibly because I like to look on the bright side', 'probably not but let's not say so', or 'well I'm going to say 'normalement' to get you off my back but actually I haven't even started the necessary prep work to make this happen but never say never.' It can range from near certitude to a total get out clause.
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I always thought that nomalement meant "expect that/should" but with a heavy gallic shrug of "but who really knows".
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Mr Piehole wrote:
What's the translation of that thing the French do where they simply blow a raspberry in your face? I think it means something like "I have no control over the thing we're discussing, and that's that, stop wasting my time as I have an amphibian to consume as a matter of urgency. Also piss off."


Post of the thread. Just made me LOL until I sprayed my Stella into the chiminea Very Happy Very Happy
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Quote:

It took some time for us to 'beat out of' The french language assistant that stayed with us this year that normalement didn't make sense translated as normally

I had a similar series of discussions with Francoise, our French teacher (now sadly living in australia). She speaks very good English and has been a professional teacher of French as a foreign language for 20 years. But she hadn't thought about the difference between the "normalement" and "normally". It's a joke between us now.

Normalement can have all the range of certainty/uncertainty described by Miranda but it rarely, if ever, seems to be accurately translatable as "normally" in English.
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Normalement = 'ought to'?
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davidof wrote:
pam w wrote:
Quote:

I'd translate that with "clearly' or "shurely"

Nope. I have learnt the hard way that if someone says, for example that "normalement" the new piste will be opening in December 2011 it means "well, it was kind of planned to be opening in December 2011 but all kinds of contingencies could mean that actually it won't, so don't hold us to it".


Can't see any difficulty with using normally in that sentence.

Normally the piste will be open in December 2011.

In other words if all goes to plan.

Should be would probably be better though.

Same for the other example given.


"Normally" very very strongly implies "this exact event has happened before, therefore I would anticipate it happening again"

e.g. "Normally I can build this Lego train in about 15 minutes" would only make sense if you had done so before, several times. It can in no sense mean "I have never done this before, but this is my expectation".
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My favourite new German word is Fremdschämen
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Surely "normalement" could be translated directly (albeit slightly officiously) as "nominally"?
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pam w wrote:
Quote:

Normally the piste will be open in December 2011

you've been in France too long, davidof. I can't imagine any native English speaker saying that about a new piste.


That's due to the lack of skiing in the UK I expect.

Anyway normalement is a false friend in your example not a word that cannot be translated.
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lynseyf, translates as vicarious embarrassment, to feel embarrassed for sb. else, or in other words - cringe-worthy! Apparently it is a "new" German word which dates from the first era of DSDS (Deutschland sucht den Superstar aka Germany has talent!) Laughing
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Hopefully Flangesax or Samerberg Sue will put me right on this one.

I was once told that the German word "sensucht" (or some near variation on that) means "nostalgia for a place you've never actually been to".

Besides being an absolutely fantastic concept which hugely raised my opinion of the German language (for which I'm sure they were all very grateful), it was about all I could remember of the conversation when I woke up in the morning.

It may have been a German person with whom I had the discussion but frankly, so much drink had been taken, it could've been any one of 23 different nationalities.
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Big Paua, according to dict.cc Sehnsuct means longing, desire, yearning, aspiration, wishfulness. So I can see how it could be used in that sense.
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Big Paua, It is generally used to describe any feeling of intense yearning or longing, usually for places or people but can be for something imaginary as well.

A lot of compound nouns really cannot be directly or simply translated because they are compounds, so you have to use multiple words or really the context to find an equivalent word or more normally phrase. You can translate any word really, but sometimes the original is so appropriate that they are simply taken into the local language. It's one of the reasons I am a technical rather than a legal or literary translator. It's way easier! wink
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edrtyuiokm'; k;: - no translation for that
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Quote:

feeling of intense yearning or longing, usually for places or people

a bit like hiraeth?
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there is also no French expression for 'Napoleon- what a narcissistic nut bag'
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Big Paua,

My German is awful... Sue is the expert in that field... the only english german word i know in german is 'cosy'...
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A favourite "Bush"ism: "The French have no word for entrepreneur".
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flangesax, Laughing

Favourite german word - durchfall Shocked
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HutToHut, Durchfall - all nouns begin with a capital - and that one is the capital pits to have! Laughing
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Normalement, an attempt to explanation and translation.

Normalement (adverb) should be used to modifiy a thing, action, state which is standard.

1. Ce magasin ferme normalement le dimanche : this shop usually closes on Sunday
2. Cela fonctione normalement : it runs smoothly

And as a poster mentioned it :

3. Normalement, cela devrait fonctioner : That should work.

1 and 2 illustrates the standard fact that this shop closes on Sunday and that all is well with a piece of machinery, for exemple. As for point three the subtlety lies in the tense of the verb "devoir", which in this case is used at the conditional tense. The sentence, is to be understood as below :

IF (condition) all is in its standard state, it should work.

Thus normalement does not qualify any noun (action, thing or state at all), as it is not its role as an adverb after all (as opposed to an adjective), but it introduces and modifies the idea of the conditional smooth running of "that" (machinery, plan... etc...).

One can observe this modification below if one sticks to the present tense :

A. Cela fonctione ! : it works !
B. Cela fonctione normalement ! : it works as expected ! (unusual, except in Scandinavia, Germany and Switzerland...)
C. Nomalement, cela fonctione ! : Usually, it works !

Point C can be related to point 3 above where not only the modifying adverb introduce the sentence but is also used with a conditional tense resulting in the action not likely to happen. C would be rather positive although hints to a certain incertitude and 3 is rather unpredictable.

I would say normalement means standard, as a rule, an expected (should) or usual manner.
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ed123,

Like in many other countries in Europe by one of his most enduring legacy : la loi (the Code Civil in France).
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Strewth. I resign.
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ed123 wrote:
there is no French expression for 'now lads- dig in this time we will prevent Paris from falling into enemy hands'


depending on the period and your understanding of the ennemy :

One hundred years ago : Verdun
Eighty years ago one would have said LVF then Charlemagne or Resistance
Fifty years ago one would have said coup d'etat

a bon entendeur, salut !
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Pedantica, Laughing

volklwaffen, but as Mr Piehole pointed out a while ago, "normally" is not used in English in reference to something that has never happened before, meaning "if all goes to plan". That's the sneaky one.
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Pedantica,
Quote:

Strewth.

Good one. (But I can guess the etymology)
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T Bar, God's truth, I believe (without looking it up.) It wasn't actually intended as a reply to the OP - it was just a random expletive! Laughing
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I've been discussing this one with some friends and would like to offer the challenge of coming up with suitable English expressions to match up with:

Luder, particularly as used Boxenluder, Promiluder and Weisenluder
Zicke/zickig
Spießer/spießig

You can get simple one word translations from sites such as Leo.org, but the discussions in the Leo Forums about each one reveal the rich diversity of meaning/understanding encompassed in one word which everyone here understands immediately! Laughing
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pam w wrote:
Pedantica, Laughing

volklwaffen, but as Mr Piehole pointed out a while ago, "normally" is not used in English in reference to something that has never happened before, meaning "if all goes to plan". That's the sneaky one.


Correct. I would then therefore propose actuellement or presentement in the very case of Mr Piehole's exemple and his accurate explanation.

Actuellement, j'assemble ce modele reduit (de train de marque Lego) en 15 minutes

In that case, actuellement and presentement imply that the speaker is aware to possess the ability to build the lego train for he/she has done so several times before.
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Been away for a while, so I'll try to make my opinion more clear:
"normalement" in my experience should be translates as "clearly" or "for sure" or maybe even better as "obviously". The impression I got is that french people just say "normalement" every few words, just like they say "d'accord?" or american teenagers say "like" every few words. Aside of a bit of mannerism , IMV it means "obviously I'm right, and if I'm wrong it's your fault for asking me" (like in the ski slope example) or "this is so obvious that you shouldn't be asking it" (house hunting example)

I think that in English, a politician or a manager not wanting to be challenged, would say "clearly, this is so", hence IMV this should be the translation, normalement.
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sugardaddy wrote:
Been away for a while, so I'll try to make my opinion more clear:
"normalement" in my experience should be translated as "clearly" or "for sure" or maybe even better as "obviously".


It really shouldn't, no.


Last edited by You need to Login to know who's really who. on Thu 23-08-12 9:40; edited 1 time in total
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Quote:

It really shouldn't, no

Quite so. The woman who told me, in a polite and helpful, non-sarcastic and shoulder-shrugging manner, that "normalement" the new piste would be open for Christmas simply meant that "if all goes according to plan", it would.

However, this discussion does rather underline the point that the word can present difficulties of translation, which was my rather trivial initial point. It can be, as davidof said, a "false friend" but the curiosity is that even very experienced people (such as my excellent French teacher) don't always recognise it as such because generally it's rather obviously translated as "normally".
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Quote:

Quite so. The woman who told me, in a polite and helpful, non-sarcastic and shoulder-shrugging manner, that "normalement" the new piste would be open for Christmas simply meant that "if all goes according to plan", it would.


I would understand that as "as far as I know" and not "if all goes as planned" and the use of "normalement". I also think that the the word is used so frequently (and IMV sometimes without any meaning at all) is just fashion, and that the difficulty of the translation will decrease as the fashion will fade out. I think that in the same manner you could argue about the meaning of the word "like", based on the colloquial use by american teenagers.
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leaving the French aside for a moment

my favourite words for which there is no single word English equivalent are

1. Sisu the finnish word for dogged determination tat sees the task through against impossible odds, the will that goes through granite. It's great as both a word in its self and a national characteristic.

2. What ever the German word for 'a gift to placate an angry wife' is. Dragon furutter (or something vaguely similar). I have brought home a few of these- they work just as well when you explain exactly what they are, possibly even better.
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ed123 wrote:
Sisu the finnish word for dogged determination tat sees the task through against impossible odds.

Indomitable
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Wayne, no- more than that - not just incapable of being subdued... apparently. I really like the word and what is seems to stand for. Sort of the opposite of being French.....
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