Jan 14, 2002 20:53
22 yrs ago
1 viewer *
French term
United States
ça sent le sapin
French to English
Marketing
Automotive / Cars & Trucks
Automotive
Script pour 1 publicité (fabricant d'auto): il y a bien évidemment un jeu de mots compris dans le passage mais je cherche une équivalence saisissable pour un/e Anglophone :
"Une jeune femme, monte toute guillerette dans la voiture, elle regarde le petit sapin désodorisant qui pend au rétro et dit au conducteur avec un large sourire :
- "Ca sent le sapin."
Le plan s'élargit : sur la banquette arrière, trois personnes habillés tout en noir, fondent en larme."
Merci d'avance, ce n'est pas évident !
"Une jeune femme, monte toute guillerette dans la voiture, elle regarde le petit sapin désodorisant qui pend au rétro et dit au conducteur avec un large sourire :
- "Ca sent le sapin."
Le plan s'élargit : sur la banquette arrière, trois personnes habillés tout en noir, fondent en larme."
Merci d'avance, ce n'est pas évident !
Proposed translations
(English)
Proposed translations
+1
1 hr
Selected
Intraduisible?
Je ne connais aucune expression anglaise qui établisse un lien entre le sapin (bois dont sont fait les cercueils bon marché) et la mort. La référence est culturelle. "ça sent le sapin" = "ça sent la mort" Je me demande vraiment si c'est traduisible.
3 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
Comment: "Thanks, I think it really is time for me to look for another image altogether. Vous avez raison !"
-1
1 hr
It smells like Christmas
I am just guessing, but as you said it could be a pun, then it could work.
Peer comment(s):
| disagree |
Guereau
: Nothing to do with Christmas
14 mins
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I did say I was guessing, have you come up with anything
|
+3
1 hr
To die for!
I know this is not a direct equivalence but it conveys something of the black humour in the pun.
Peer comment(s):
| agree |
Yolanda Broad
: cute!
8 mins
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| agree |
jmleger
: Valiant attempt, but when was the last time anyone found the smell of a deodorizer good enough to die for? Does not quite work... unfortunately.
8 mins
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| agree |
Eva Blanar
10 mins
|
1 hr
This is the end of the road!
Just a suggestion to work on. Hachette translates the expression as "you sound as though you're not long for this world"
Bonne chance.
Don
Bonne chance.
Don
1 hr
have you guys been making a coffin from pine, or what?
maybe there's a closer link in US English to the smell of the wood and the idea of death, but there's nothing in British english. Probably best to remake that part of the clip ("pushing up the daisies perhaps...")
2 hrs
it smells like a wooden box in here
or it smells like formaldahyde (check spelling) in here. Or you could possibly even say "it smells like a hearse". It's true, there's no correlation between trees and death in the English language but if you put in some sort of reference to a mortuary it should work.
3 hrs
Patrick McKeown
Italy
Italy
Native in English
Italy
Creating content
Native in: English 
Works in: Italian to English, French to English, English
"Smells fatal, doesn't lads?"
as you "only" need to express the idea to your client, this might work.
12 hrs
Nikki Scott-Despaigne
Native in English
Psychologist, Court-certified legal
Native in: English
Works in: French to English
Related KudoZ points
:
20
Smells like death warmed up!
A rather yucky English expression. I tend to think that any image linking death and cars is quite horrendous, unless it's a road safety thing and then you have to be extremely careful and avoid any sorts of puns at all.
If the pine tree is the important thing around which your rendering has to be expressed, then I'm afraid you might be right in looking for another image altogether.
Might you find something in the use of "dead" meaning "very" in British English?
If the pine tree is the important thing around which your rendering has to be expressed, then I'm afraid you might be right in looking for another image altogether.
Might you find something in the use of "dead" meaning "very" in British English?
13 hrs
it's a pine not a graveyard cypress
I know I am too late and that the pun is too bad but I thought it was worth trying!
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