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"se situer à un niveau standard"
productible
Dec 19, 2012 18:03
11 yrs ago
3 viewers *
French term

vieille France

French to English Art/Literary Other
I'm sorry for what is a basic question (I am not a translator), but I want to make sure I do this right.

I am editing an English-language book in which an author lives for a time in France. The author speaks only a certain amount of French. In the sentence below, am I using "vieille" correctly? I know it is the feminine form of the word, but here it is applying in some way to a man. In the original, the author had "vieux France," but I thought that was wrong. Is it OK, or is it odd to call a man "very vieille France"? Many thanks. Here's the sentence (in English as below except for the French phrase):

At about the same time I became friends with M. B___, an old French man, very vieille France, very traditional.
Proposed translations (English)
2 +3 fine as it is
4 +1 old-school French
4 +1 with old-fashioned (French) values

Discussion

Jonathan MacKerron Dec 20, 2012:
@Nikki While I agree with italics here, my experience shows such self-formatting often dissappears by the time the thing is published, due to it being converted to another standard or whatever.
Nikki Scott-Despaigne Dec 19, 2012:
vieille France in italics rather than inverted commas. The specific editing conventions are no doubt specified by the client but I think I have it the right way round.
jmleger Dec 19, 2012:
The adjective agrees with France, not the man so, yes, it's "vieille".
Jonathan MacKerron Dec 19, 2012:
Sounds fine to me. I think it is quite acceptable as it stands. First, most people interested in reading this book probably know something about France and understand some French, and to call someone "veille France" is I think quite clever. Has nothing to do with whether or not it is a man.
cc in nyc Dec 19, 2012:
@ Zittle First, you're right, you cannot put "vieux France" – no, no, no; it's impossible! "La France" is feminine. That's what matters grammatically, not the gender of the person that you are talking about.
Next, you might consider quote marks in the text: very "vieille France," very traditional.
I think that "very traditional" (or "very old school") explains the meaning. ;-)
Zittle (asker) Dec 19, 2012:
She's putting it in italics and wants to keep it, I'm sure. I'm asking from a grammatical/functional standpoint, if it can apply to a man. Thanks.
jmleger Dec 19, 2012:
yes, but... since "Vielle France" does not really mean anything to an English speaker. I would use "very old-school"

Proposed translations

+3
32 mins
Selected

fine as it is

does it really need to be dumbed down?

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 hr (2012-12-19 19:31:44 GMT)
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but should be in parentheses
Note from asker:
Thanks. This is it. And I probably should have put it in FR-FR, but wasn't sure if my English-only contextual babbling would be OK there.
Peer comment(s):
neutral Daryo : what about those who don't understand a word of French? Wasn't the point of translating to make it usable for those people?
21 mins
A book about France without a single word of French? Moreover, it says 'very traditional'!
agree Helen Shiner : You seem to be the only one who understands the question (perhaps it should have been posted FR-FR).
2 hrs
agree Michele Fauble
2 hrs
agree sktrans
8 hrs
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thanks! Apologies if my question was unclear or should have been in FR-->FR (I didn't feel comfortable writing there in English.) Italics will definitely make it to the finished book, don't worry!"
+1
21 mins

old-school French

As the reason for "vieille" being feminine is that it qualifies "France", it is the phrase "vieille France" that is being applied to the man, which is fine. I agree with jmleger, but would suggest "very old-school French".

alive.atari.org/alive6/mjj_spr.php
"A very old-school french wiz-coder named Leonard is hooked on producing more non-masked 2-bitplane sprites on screen than anyone else - that's fine with me ..."

www.ballet.co.uk/magazines/yr_05/oct05/et_rev_bolshoi_0705....
" ... some (very) old-school French style bravura, and spectacular spectacle."
Peer comment(s):
agree Nikki Scott-Despaigne : It's good this one has been posted, although I would probably now say that "French" can be dropped. "Vieille France" is fine for FR speakers but not for non-fluent lovers of France. "Old-school" is a good & can be seen when glossary post consulted. ;-)
1 hr
neutral ACOZ (X) : You're right about this person being "old school" but I wouldn't use the expression here in proximity to "French". Too similar to "school French".
4 hrs
Something went wrong...
+1
1 hr

with old-fashioned (French) values

"vieille France" = France as it was before, maybe one or two generations before today.


When used as an adjective, it's mainly a reference to traditional / old-fashioned values.
Peer comment(s):
neutral writeaway : old-fashioned? how old? I don't think it works in this context.
28 mins
old-fashioned values - can't get much more close to the idea of "vieille France"
agree ACOZ (X) : Yes, "vieille France" conjures up a picture of a rather formal person with excellent old-fashioned manners and ideas.
3 hrs
Merci!
Something went wrong...
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