A personal diary keeping people abreast of what I am working on writing-wise.

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

JE SUIS FOLLE DE TANT T'AIMER

They love us in France. Word is, Joëlle Jones is the new Jerry Lewis. Not sure what that makes me.*

Why am I saying such crazy things? Because the French edition of 12 Reasons Why I Love Her has been reviewed by a French website!

It's in French, but if you want to read an internet translation, just select this text file.

I hadn't realized that their version of the title, Douze raisons de l’aimer, translates more like "12 Reasons to Like It." Or, again, that's how Babelfish calls it out. If you have better translation powers, please leave a comment.

* In America, we're like the comics equivalent of Rilo Kiley: Every one wishes that dude whose name no one can ever remember would stay quiet and just let the talented girl sing.

Current Soundtrack: Femmes de Paris, vol. 1

Current Mood: tres jolie

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Aimer" is the usual French word for "to love" (and "to like", but, hey, they're French). The phrase "I love you" is always translated by "Je t'aime," ("aime" being the first person singular of "aimer").

French doesn't distinguish 3rd person pronouns the same way English does. English has natural gender, "she" applying to females, "he" to males, "it" to inanimate objects.

French has grammatical gender, with no neuter, so all nouns, including inanimate objects, are either "masculine" or "feminine". A car for example is feminine. You *could* say the French call a car a "she", but that's a literal translation, and not how the French would perceive it.

The French phrase "Douze raisons de l’aimer" is more ambiguous than the English, since it's not immediately clear how much like/love there is, and it's not even clear whether "l'" is short for "la" ("her or feminine "it") or "le ("him" or masculine "it"). However, context is everything with language, and with that cover, any French person would assume it refers to loving her, and not liking, say, the bench.

wallflower

Jamie S. Rich said...

Thanks!

The question arose because the reviewer noted the difference in the titles.