Questions tagged [french]
The french tag has no usage guidance.
22
questions
4
votes
2
answers
136
views
Wird "à la carte" benutzt?
At a restaurant, ordering "à la carte" is a French saying that means to order dishes separately one from the other, as opposed to ordering a "menu" that contains a smaller set of ...
- 359
3
votes
2
answers
314
views
Is the Berlin dialect strongly influenced by French?
In a post on another SE site, it was claimed:
As apposed to other countries (where only the aristocrats spoke
French), in Prussia it was spoken by part of the population in
everyday life.
The Berlin ...
- 373
1
vote
2
answers
135
views
"wenn ich ihn mitnähme" translation
"wenn ich deinen Namen mitnähme, er würde fortsein wie zuvor"
Context is the following : 'ich' will die before 'du', 'ich' know 'du''s name, and nobody else does. When 'ich' will die the ...
- 645
2
votes
3
answers
123
views
Translation of "unerreichbar entfernt"
I want to translate the following phrase from German to English/ French:
aber unerreichbar entfernt durch eine zehn Fuß starke Mauer
(Günther Anders: Die molussische Katakombe, p. 17)
I infer ...
- 645
2
votes
1
answer
100
views
Translating "jmd. anführen"
Er aber fuhr mich an, auch er und alle dächten an uns.
I see two possibilities:
But he raised, that also him and all were thinking about us
But he tried to fool me saying that also him and all were ...
- 645
2
votes
3
answers
125
views
In German, how to say: "when you just saw an awe-inspiring example to follow, which made you want to be just like that person"?
We were having a conversation in French about a certain businessman who visited our hospital, and I said jokingly:
Je viens de le croiser dans le couloir et il a tout du homme d’affaires. Un jour, ...
- 4,682
4
votes
7
answers
2k
views
How to emphasise the insignificance of someone/thing – besides using "klein"
We were having a conversation in French about asteroids, and I said:
Je ne suis peut-être pas expert en astronomie, mais... Qu’est-ce qu’un petit humain de rien du tout peut contre quelque chose d’...
- 4,682
3
votes
4
answers
428
views
How is the idea of "two people having a heated argument" idiomatically expressed in German?
I was having a conversation with my friend in another language, and I was wondering how in German I'd express the idea of "two people having a heated argument where one of them throws a tantrum and, ...
- 4,682
1
vote
1
answer
80
views
Do "sich etw. in den Kopf setzen" and "etw. im Kopf haben" always have a positive/negative connotation respectively?
In conversation with my friend, I said:
Er mag zwar ein richtiger kleiner Unruhestifter gewesen sein und hatte vielleicht immer nur Unfug im Kopf, aber wenn er sich etwas in den Kopf gesetzt hatte, ...
- 4,682
3
votes
3
answers
144
views
German equivalents of the hyperbolic "je ne sais combien/quel/etc" in French
We were having a conversation in French, and I was wondering how I'd express the same idea in German:
En arrivant à l'aéroport, on est passés par je ne sais combien de contrôles de sécurité tous ...
- 4,682
3
votes
1
answer
83
views
German equivalents of the French expression "pour un oui ou pour un non"
Tu ramènes toujours tes complexes ethniques, pour un oui ou pour un non, dans toutes les discussions, même les plus anodines.
{literally}: You always dredge up some complex about your ethnic origin, ...
- 4,682
3
votes
1
answer
190
views
How is the idea of "girlfriend material" naturally expressed in German?
Elle n'est pas de l'étoffe dont on fait les copines...
{literally}: She's not of the material from which we make girlfriends.
То express the idea of "she's not (X)girlfriend material", &...
- 4,682
4
votes
4
answers
163
views
German equivalents of "À peine le temps de dire ouf" in French
À peine le temps de dire ouf qu’il est tombé comme une brique sur le lit...
Literally: (He must have been dead tired.) No sooner / Hardly had he said phew than he fell onto the bed like a bag of ...
- 4,682
5
votes
1
answer
122
views
How do German speakers idiomatically express the idea of "Ce n’est pas donné à tout le monde de ..." in French?
Tu as vraiment de la chance, XXX, c’est pas donné à tout le monde d’être amie avec un joueur de tennis mondialement connu.
We were having a conversation in French, and I was wondering how I'd express ...
- 4,682
6
votes
3
answers
315
views
German equivalent of the French expression "Mais de là à ..."
In conversation, you can say, for instance:
Elle était du genre à se jeter sur les horoscopes. Mais de là à se faire refaire les lignes de la main...
"She was always one to blindly believe in ...
- 4,682
8
votes
3
answers
194
views
German equivalent of the French expression "n'avoir rien à envier à personne"
Pourtant, en matière d'écart de langage, elle n'a rien à envier à personne.
= Someone made an inappropriate remark, but she’s had more than her fair share of slip-of-the-tongue moments herself. So ...
- 4,682
4
votes
3
answers
306
views
Pseudo-French words in German
In her review of Vanderperren, Dictionnaire des faux amis/Wörterbuch der faux amis. Allemand-francais/Deutch-Französisch, Paris, 1994, published in Romanistiches Jahrbuch, vol. 46, issue 1, the ...
2
votes
1
answer
350
views
German-French false friends dictionary
I would like to know if there is a German-French dictionary of false friends, i.e. words that exist in both languages and sound similarly but have different meanings, for example état in French means "...
2
votes
3
answers
2k
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How would you translate Enchanté?
The French word Enchanté means "Nice to meet you" or "Delighted". What is the most idiomatic way to say this in German? Google Translate gives verzauberte but I doubt this is idiomatic.
- 1,789
13
votes
2
answers
2k
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What is the name of this type of chair that can be found on beaches?
I'm looking for a German translation of this type of chair, that can be found on the northern French beaches. We call them "Chaises à capuchon", where chaise is "chair" and capuchon would be "hood" or ...
- 388
1
vote
1
answer
99
views
Going from "wäre" and "sei" in indirect reporting to the actual (direct) discourse
The question is on these two German renditions of a passage from Camus’s L’Étranger (English: The Stranger or The Outsider, German: Der Fremde).
To set the context, Meursault, the first person ...
- 4,326
6
votes
1
answer
321
views
How to translate "Relever une prescription" from French to German?
How do you say in German when a nurse becomes aware of a medical prescription and prepares everything according to what the doctor asks?
In French we say "relever une prescription". The action itself ...
- 171