Yesterday, with the hubris of someone who conceives a grand plan without considering what a pain in the butt it will be to accomplish, I announced I would try reading a French detective novel in French as a way to improve my very sketchy language skills.
Here’s what that looks like. The paragraph below is the first paragraph in the novel. The second paragraph is my translation, without any help. The third paragraph is how The Gutenberg Project translates it.
In French: Le jeudi 6 mars 1862, surlendemain du Mardi gras, cinq femmes du village de La Jonchère se présentaient au bureau de police de Bougival. Elles racontaient que depuis deux jours personne n’avait aperçu une de leurs voisines, la veuve Lerouge, qui habitait seule une maisonnette isolée. À plusieurs reprises, elles avaient frappé en vain. Les fenêtres comme la porte étant exactement fermées, il avait été impossible de jeter un coup d’œil à l’intérieur. Ce silence, cette disparition les inquiétaient. Redoutant un crime, ou tout au moins un accident, elles demandaient que la «Justice» voulût bien, pour les rassurer, forcer la porte et pénétrer dans la maison.
My translation: On Tuesday March 6 1862, about the time of Mardi gras, five women from the town of La Jonchere showed up at the police department in Bougival. They explained that over the last two days, no one had seen or heard from the widow Lerouge, who lived alone in a small house. The women had several times knocked, but had no answer. The windows, like the door, were locked, it was impossible, ???? to look inside. The silence, the ????, bothered them. They suspected a crime or at least an accident and demanded an officer come right away to force the door and enter the house.
Guttenbert project translation: On Thursday, March 6, 1862, the day after Shrove Tuesday, five women from the village of La Jonchère presented themselves at the Bougival police station. They recounted that for two days no one had seen one of their neighbors, the widow Lerouge, who lived alone in an isolated little house. They had knocked several times in vain. The windows and the door were tightly closed, making it impossible to peek inside. This silence, this disappearance, worried them. Fearing a crime, or at least an accident, they asked that “Justice” would, to reassure them, force the door and enter the house.
Not, too bad for a rusty speaker. I did miss some things. I’m trying to have the meaning penetrate without translating into English in my head. I know what “cinq femmes” means when I see it without pausing for a translation. On the other hand, I had no idea what “redoutant” in “redoutant un crime” meant, I guessed “suspected” because of the context. Guttenberg translated it as “fearing.” Google’s translation offered “dreading.”
If the author had used the word “suspecting,” it would have been: soupçonner.
It’ll be interesting to see how far I get.
Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now 