Myrtille emailed me this week; she is too cute. She wrote, en francais, that she hopes I am doing well. And she included addresses of people who are interested in some conversation—not only in person in Paris but possibly by email. Then she switched to English and said, “Why don’t you try to find a pen pal that would keep your French warm?”
This email reminded me how hard it is to translate our first language into another and to find the correct foreign word(s) to express our thoughts. I’ve heard that there are more English words than French words so one French word may have many different meanings; for example, the verb sortir. The dictionary lists all these definitions for this one word: to come out, to go out, to come up, to take out, to bring out, to pull through, to get through, to go out of, to leave, to come from, to be outside. I suppose that I could find the same kind of example for an English word but I already know that language so I’m not usually stumped when looking for the right word (except for my menopausal issues…).
During a visit with Rolinka and her friend, Antoine, one afternoon, we spent some time discussing this challenge. Antoine is French and Rolinka is Dutch; Rolinka is trying to improve her French and Antoine wants to speak better English. So they speak English in the AM and French in the afternoon. One word that they were debating the day I visited was “ambivalent”—what it meant, how to use it in a sentence, what Dutch and French words related to it. Antoine went to his office to get a dictionary and when Rolinka looked at it, she stammered, “Ahhh, this is a French-French dictionary…” Antoine smirked and said, “Yesss, they do still exist…” My francais-anglais – anglais-francais dictionary was an extension of my arm when I was there! And I seldom needed my Webster's American dictionary.
That day Rolinka had received an email from an American living in Phoenix who inquired about renting her apartment. His name wasn’t “Joe Smith” and I won’t comment on my opinion of the nationality of his name. Rolinka felt that he wasn’t polite enough in the email and she didn’t like “his attitude.” So she told him the apartment wasn’t available. I suggested that maybe it was a cultural difference as well as a translation challenge. I had just had a conversation with my LL, who returned from a two-week trip to India where they don’t throw around the word “thank you” like we do (and especially Parisians who begin and end virtually every sentence with merci). Adrian explained that it’s impolite in India to show appreciation for what is considered deserved or rightfully yours and she had a hard time adapting to this. Rolinka didn’t seem to “buy” this and still seemed suspicious about the manners of the guy from Phoenix.
Anyway, I digress as usual. I haven’t responded to Myrtille yet because I’m still trying to translate my response into French! And while she reads it, she’ll have her head in her hands thinking, “oh la la, I wasted a lot of time with that lady…” Of course, she’ll be thinking it en francais: “Oh la la, j’ai gaspille beaucoup temps avec cette femme.” (I think…)
