Hey all,

I don't know if there are any French natives here but I thought I would ask here and find out anyway.

I am basically looking for help translating from English->French, I do not speak any French.

What I am wanting to translate is two words: about her.

This is the title of a short story.

'About her' in the feel of a memoir. Like, 'About the time we met', or 'About my life'. It would be referring to a definite other person, although unspecific as to who that person is. Does that make sense? Basically the connotation would be, that this short story is about her. The story is fiction, if that makes any difference. It should also not necessarily simply be a few bland words, but have some kind of meaning behind it. Something unusual perhaps, or a turn of phrase. If at all possible. Does that make sense?

Importantly, it need not be translated to 'about her', but could be something conceptually similar, like 'c'est elle-même à l'appareil' or 'elle de même' (elle de même not being grammatical on its own, I realise, but for this that doesn't matter as long as the meaning is there), or even something like 'C'est elle qui a découvert l'elle' (although I'm not sure if/how that one works since I wrote the last bit myself). I hope any that makes sense at all.

I have a sort of French dictionary with which I have guessed at a few things which are probably horridly wrong:

Elle sujet elle elle

Sujet qui elle

Elle-même qui elle

Elle elle

Anyway, after surely embarrassing myself there, thanks very much for any help. Please tell me if anything isn't clear. Much appreciated.

Peace.

I"d try ---- au sujet de son, but don"t quote me on that!

Hug46 - Au sujet de son means "on the subject of sound" - is that what you meant to suggest?

A literal translation of about her would be : "A Rapport a Elle" (the "a" would have an accent aigu, but I don't have a french keyboard)

And "C'est elle qui a découvert l'elle" translates to "It was her that discovered herself", or "she was the one who discovered herself"

Some possibilities:

Histoire d'elle (story of her)
L'Histoire d'elle (the story of her)
L'histoire de son histoire (the story of his/her history (the genre is unclear))
Un histoire de son histoire (a story from his/her history)
Au sujet d'elle (on the subject of her/concerning her)
Elle meme (herself/her self) (the "e" in meme should have an accent circonflexe)
Elle et elle meme (her and herself)
Une chronique d'elle (a chronicle of her(s))
Journal d'elle (diary of her)
Son Journal a elle (her diary) (again, accent aigu on the a)
un memoir d'elle (a memoir of her(s)) (accent aigu on the e in memoire)
En Memoire d'elle (in memory of her) (accent aigu on the e in memoire)
Un conte d'elle/le conte d'elle (a tale of her/the tale of her) (though the first one could also mean "a tale coming from/recounted by her)

Can't think of any others without knowing more about your story. Hope this helps. And by the way, you made me chuckle with "'c'est elle-même à l'appareil', which translates literally to "it's herself on the appliance". Though more colloquially it could mean "it's herself on the phone".

Cheers,
JBArk

Hmm i have always wondered why French people mostly look at me funny when i try to communicate (i just thought it was my scruffy attire). Been in France for 3 years and slowly learning the lingo. (i meant to write "au sujet d"elle)

I think you meant to write "a son sujet", which clearly "rings" differently than "au sujet de son". I am in quebec and am a fluently bilingual anglophone who learned french through years of schooling, by living in France for 4 x 4month periods (racing bikes!) and by immersing myself in quebecois culture and having a francophone girlfriend for 16 yrs (and a tacit agreement that we speak only french together. Laziness on her part, profiteering on mine ). So my french is pretty good, but I'll never be satisfied with it until I accept that it will never be on par with my "anglais".

JBArk

I meant - au sujet d"elle , which i guess literally means "to the subject of her" but i get mixed up with masculine and feminine (son frere, sa fille, lui, elle etc).
I had a French girlfriend for a while and it was very good for my learning but alas we went our separate ways. Round my way most of the women are married off by 18.
Very few of the locals speak English so it was a baptism of fire for the first year but i just think they are getting used to my bad accent and poor vocabulary rather than my French improving. I get my French pals to correct me on occasion and watch French language films also my language skills seem to improve with the drinking of alcohol ,either that or i become more delusional!
Get me on a telephone while trying to talk to officials and i go to pieces. There is a lot to be said for body language and facial expressions.
Sorry if i am derailing.
Edit i love bike racing, i have been to Le mans 24 heure and the Bol D"or, or are we talking velos?

Wow thanks so much for the help both of you.

jbark it is fiction, a novella more or less, about recollections of the past. the tone of it is somewhat elegiac, if that matters.

'C'est elle qui a découvert l'elle' is really good. If you don't mind indulging me futher, what would 'she discovered herself' look like by itself? As well as actually, 'it was her' with that same sort of mood? (rather than an accusative thing)

The other ones that were probably closest to what I was thinking were 'Elle meme', 'Elle et elle meme', and 'Au sujet d'elle'. I don't think anything with the actual words 'history' or 'memoir' or 'diary' would work. Nothing that literal.

Thanks so much jbark.

No problem.

Just a note - you stuck an extra "l" in the one you found "really good". But I am confused - I didn't write that one and I don't see it anywhere else in the thread...

Also, 'C'est elle qui a découvert elle' (i removed the offending "l" ), means "It was she that discovered her", which could lead to some confusion as it is not necessarily self-referential. Herself is translated as "elle-même", so that sentence could mean that she discovered someone else (another woman) i.e. SHE discovered HER.

"She discovered herself" would translate to "elle s'est decouvert" (accent aigu on the first e in decouvert). The "se" (abbreviated to s' ) is self-referential in this context. It could also be written "elle a decouvert elle meme" (with accents of course), but it is decidedly clumsier.

Good luck! And if you have any more, fire away!

JBArk

Oh dear. I saw:



And thought that you had come up with that. I didn't even remember writing that myself in the first place.

I liked what you said it translated to, however. Thanks for the correction.

Would 'Elle qui découvert elle' mean 'She discovered her'?

I'm still not entirely sure about any of these, but I feel certain that if I were to see the certain phrase/translation I would know right away.

With the French Au sujet d'elle, how different would that be to: if you for instance were talking to someone and said, mentioning something that had happened at a prior date, 'About that night...'?

As in, 'About that night, by the way, I didn't mean to say what I said.' Or insert whatever other hackneyed conversation bit. Would the 'About [the subject], ...' be different there? Hope that makes sense.

Thanks again.

Peace

Ok i am going to wade in with my size 10s here and say "au sujet a l"autre nuit..." for the above.
jbark please chime in if necessary (jbark a (re?)viens mon nouveau prof de la langue Francais) all critiques welcomed .

"Elle qui decouvre elle" = she who discovered her (decouvert is the wrong verb tense)
"she discovered her" = elle a decouvert elle
"she discovered herself"= elle s'est decouvert

"au sujet d'elle" means concerning, or in reference to/ her; "au sujet de" can mean, in translation:
on the subject of, concerning, with regards to (or simply regarding)

"about that night"= concernant/a rapport a/au sujet de l'autre soir/nuit

I hope this answers the questions - I wasn't too certain what you were asking.

JBArk

I hate to say it, but "au sujet a l"autre nuit..." makes no grammatical sense. it means "on the subject at the other night".

and while we're on the subject , jbark a (re?)viens mon nouveau prof de la langue Francais, should be:

Jbark devient mon nouveau prof de la langue Francaise.

The lessons begin.

JBArk

Not to hijack your thread or anything, Amy S, but...

jbark - Did it really require nothing more than a French translation request to lure you back to our midst? How long's a guy gotta beg in English?

Jeez.

Been super busy. Started bike racing again. Then my kid was sick for a couple of weeks. I am basically back, but still want to find the time to finish writing out what actually happened to me to post here. And when did you beg ya silly git? we have different definitions of beg - i usually end up covered in bodily fluids and panting for breath whenever there is begging about.

(sorry for aiding and abetting the derail and for the tasteless reference to fluids of bodily origins )

JBArk

Bien sur, toute de suite, allez oops mon prof!

Ahh hm. Sorry for being so bad at this.

Well, the 'about that night' was only an example of some conversation. What I was trying to ask was would the phrasing change at all if it were used in a sentence, having a conversational feel instead of a 'title of a book' feel, if that makes sense.

Also I think I realise that it needs to be intransitive perhaps, or something similar. And also that the second 'her' should be the subject, not the object. Which would possibly mean that there should be only one 'her' in the title (ie., 'discovered her', rather than, 'she discovered her'. In this sense au sujet d'elle would be closest to what I'm after so far I guess.

But probably that again makes no sense.

Thanks heaps for your help.

Peace


P.s. 'Now why don't you just take it easy, Group Captain, and please make me a drink of grain alcohol and rainwater, and help yourself to whatever you'd like.'

I've thought about this more and I think that probably something minimalistic will be preferable.

Would you be able to translate what simply 'Her, Her' would be? Are there various ways of saying this?

Also, does a propos d'elle mean anything?

P.s. 'Now why don't you just take it easy, Group Captain, and please make me a drink of grain alcohol and rainwater, and help yourself to whatever you'd like.

Too many 'ands' here.

The sentence would read much better like this;

'Now why don't you just take it easy Group Captain?' she asked, adding,
'Would you make me a drink of grain alcohol and rainwater please? And do help yourself to whatever you'd like.'

At least in English...not sure if French would structure it differently.

Not when my precious bodily fluids are at stake.

You lost me, what does this mean:

P.s. 'Now why don't you just take it easy, Group Captain, and please make me a drink of grain alcohol and rainwater, and help yourself to whatever you'd like.' ?

A propos d'elle means the same thing as "au sujet d'elle": regarding/concerning/about her.

Her her, in english or in french makes no grammatical sense, but may be an effective stylistic title - that's for you to decide. In french it would be just what you expect: Elle Elle.

JBArk