Does anyone know French, please? 👍

[Emalie]

Hi everyone, I'm working on an emergency commission and I have to draw three panels where there's a couple. One of them speaks French and the other one doesn't, but despite that, the one who doesn't know French tries to understand it: I translated the dialogues with Google Translate, but I don't trust it too much. The dialogues in English are:

• What's wrong?
• Can I help you?
• Is it okay if I can hug you?

The person who commissioned me speaks French but not fluently, so I would like to confirm the translations I have.

Thanks in advance for the help.

[moontokkym]

Hi, I'm bilingual and have lived in France since I was 8, so I can try and help.

• What's wrong: I'd say "qu'est-ce qui ne va pas ?" for the fluent person and "il y a quoi de mal ?" for the non fluent person. The first is a normal way of saying it, the second is a clumsy direct translation.

• Can I help you?: "Est-ce que je peux te/vous aider ?" Or "Je peux t'aider ?/ Je peux vous aider ?" depending on the relationship if it's more formal use "vous" if casual use "te". The non fluent person would say something like that too, it's a very cookie cutter phrase most students learn early.

• Is it ok if I can hug you?: seems a bit strange in English so I'm presuming this is the non fluent person, but just in case: "est-ce que je peux te faire un câlin ?/ Est-ce que tu/vous veux/voulez un câlin ?" would be the fluent way of asking, "C'est bon si je peux te faire un câlin ?" or even "c'est bon si je fais câlin à toi ?" would be more janky ways of saying it closer to how English minds order words

Watch out for syntax too, "?" have spaces before and after them in French like in my examples.

I hope this helps :3

[Emalie]

This made my day! I was comparing the first sentences, and they definitely match what I have. As for the last dialogue, it was the one I was most unsure about. The character who speaks French asks the other person for permission to hug them.

Thank you so much for all the help. It was exactly what I needed to finish the commission.

[pablo-costa]

Oh, I am bookmarking this. I also have some french characters and this is 'chef's kiss'

[moontokkym]

@Emalie you're welcome :3 glad I could help! And yeah "hug" in French can be a little difficult to dose because French only has "câlin" which means "to cuddle" (or technically "embrasser" can also mean cuddle but it's even worse for the problem I'm describing), so sometimes platonic uses of it in French can seem more intimate in the English translation because we have seperate words for the purely platonic "hug" and the sometimes more involved "cuddle". We actually use the English phrase "free hugs" at conventions a lot because "câlins gratuits" (the litteral translation) can be misinterpreted.

(Because I didn't explain: "embrasser" litterally means "to take in your arms" and used to be used more widely for hugs and cuddles in literature, but it's also often used as a euphemism for "to kiss" usually on the lips, to the point where in modern language it's almost exclusively used for kissing. Like I was asked "je peux t'embrasser ?" to mean "can i kiss you?". It also had the side effect of making those brotherly manly hugs after battle from french 1800s books very gay.)

@pablo-costa if you ever need a quick check for your character you can ping me in the post. I'm not around too often so I might not see it in the new topics and I will gladly get way too detailed about word choice and grammar

[Emalie]

Wow, the concept of "hug" can be very complex. I have had the same experience with my native language, Spanish. Saying I love you in English can be very general for us.

We don't love everyone; we can appreciate a friend but not love them romantically. Saying "Te quiero" and "Te amo" in English, both mean I love you, but for us there is a big difference.

Thank you so much for this explanation.