Getting around in a foreign language is one thing, articulating exactly the idea we want to express is an altogether more challenging project.
If we try to translate ideas from our own language, we inevitably get things back to front – and if we’re not careful, failure to communicate can become discouraging. So here’s a technique for learning how to adopt the language of native-speakers.
Reverse the machine
If you use automated translation tools such as Deepl or Google Translate, you’ll have noticed how their quality has improved in recent years. The translations aren’t elegant. But if the input language is clear and precise, the output in most cases is comprehensible and accurately conveys the meaning of the original. And that’s good enough for this exercise.
It’s very simple. Find an article on the internet written in French whose subject matter interests you. Without reading it too closely, put it through an automatic translation machine and convert it to your native language.
Now take that automatically generated text – and try yourself to translate it back to French. When you’re done, check your work back against the original.
There are three interesting things about this exercise:
- You can choose any text you like – so it’s good for working on a special interest
- The apparent clumsiness of the automated translation is a help: it’s a pointer to the syntax of the French original.
- By carefully comparing your effort to an authentic text, you can pinpoint the difference between your spontaneous way of expressing ideas and the native way
Give it a try
You can give it a try with the following text: it’s an automated translation (with just half a dozen corrections) of a text by a well known author. When you have had a go at translating, click on the reveal button below to discover the original.
I talk a lot about Anne and myself and little about my father. Not that his role hasn’t been the most important in this story, nor that I don’t give him any interest. I never loved anyone like him and all the feelings that animated me at that time, the ones I felt for him were the most stable, the deepest, the ones I cared about most. I know him too well to talk about it easily and I feel too close. However, it is he more than anyone else that I should explain to make his conduct acceptable. He was neither a vain man nor a selfish man. But he was light, of a lightness without remedy. I can not even speak of him as a man incapable of deep feelings, as of an irresponsible. The love he bore me could not be taken lightly or considered a mere habit of father. He could suffer because of me more than anyone; and myself, that despair I had touched one day, was it not only because he had had this gesture of abandonment, this look turned away? … He never made me go second behind his passions. Some nights, to take me home, he had to let go of what Webb called “great opportunities”. But besides that, he was given up to his own pleasure, to inconstancy, to facility, I can not deny it. He did not think. He tried to give everything a physiological explanation that he declared rational: “You find yourself odious? Sleep more, drink less”. The same was true of the violent desire he sometimes felt for a woman; he did not think of repressing it or exalting it to a more complex feeling. He was materialistic, but delicate, understanding and finally very good.
Montrer le texteCacher le texteJe parle beaucoup d’Anne et de moi-même et peu de mon père. Non que son rôle n’ait été le plus important dans cette histoire, ni que je ne lui accorde de l’intérêt. Je n’ai jamais aimé personne comme lui et de tous les sentiments qui m’animaient à cette époque, ceux que j’éprouvais pour lui étaient les plus stables, les plus profonds, ceux auxquels je tenais le plus. Je le connais trop pour en parler volontiers et je me sens trop proche. Cependant, c’est lui plus que tout autre que je devrais expliquer pour rendre sa conduite acceptable. Ce n’était ni un homme vain, ni un homme égoïste. Mais il était léger, d’une légèreté sans remède. Je ne puis même pas en parler comme d’un homme incapable de sentiments profonds, comme d’un irresponsable. L’amour qu’il me portait ne pouvait être pris à la légère ni considéré comme une simple habitude de père. Il pouvait souffrir par moi plus que n’importe qui ; et moi-même, ce désespoir que j’avais touché un jour, n’était-ce pas uniquement parce qu’il avait eu ce geste d’abandon, ce regard qui se détournait ?… Il ne me faisait jamais passer après ses passions. Certains soirs, pour me raccompagner à la maison, il avait dû laisser échapper ce que Webb appelait «de très belles occasions ». Mais qu’en dehors de cela, il eût été livré à son bon plaisir, à l’inconstance, à la facilité, je ne puis le nier. Il ne réfléchissait pas. Il tentait de donner à toute chose une explication physiologique qu’il déclarait rationnelle : «Tu te trouves odieuse ? Dors plus, bois moins. » Il en était de même du désir violent qu’il ressentait parfois pour une femme, il ne songeait ni à le réprimer ni à l’exalter jusqu’à un sentiment plus complexe. Il était matérialiste, mais délicat, compréhensif et enfin très bon.
Bonjour tristesse, Françoise Sagan – 1954
