Anybody speak French?

[EverLux]

There are a few sentences I need the French translations of for a story I'm working on. I've tried looking online, but there are multiple results for each phrase, so that's not helpful.
I'm trying to avoid comments like, "Why is he talking like a woman?" or "Is he supposed to be a robot?"

The three phrases that need translating are:

-I'm crazy about you.

-I can't stop thinking about you.

-We are in love with you.

In case gender does come into play here, all three lines are spoken by a man to a woman.

Thanks!

 

[NaokoSmith]

Hopefully you will get someone actually French to give you a completely correct version. Your chances are high, I've even managed to get help on this board with Welsh translations If you don't get someone straightaway, bump the thread.

-I'm crazy about you.
Je suis fou de toi

-I can't stop thinking about you.
Je peux pas pas arrêter de penser à vous
I think this might be a more idiomatic version: Je ne peux pas m'arrêter de penser à toi

-We are in love with you.
Nous sommes amoureux de toi.
(I have used the male plural version of 'amoureux' to be in love.)

Bear in mind that 'toi' is the more intimate format for 'you', whereas 'vous' is used if you don't know a person so well.

 

[tomlitilia]

There is a French literotica forum, availible frm the first forum page. You'd probably find someone there. I've done the same with Italian translations.

 

[EverLux]

Thank you, Naoko!
I hadn't even considered formal vs. informal speech, so that was helpful.
My next story will have to be less romance, more hardcore BDSM gangbang, so I can put my limited German to good use

And thanks, tomlitilia, for the advice

 

[Handley_Page]

You might try Lori the Hoosier, who speaks fluent Cajun French, or so I was told

 

[TxRad]

You might try Lori the Hoosier, who speaks fluent Cajun French, or so I was told

Cajun French and actual French are considered two different languages by most people since came by way of Nova Scotia.

 

[Handley_Page]

Cajun French and actual French are considered two different languages by most people since came by way of Nova Scotia.

Perhaps not, then, eh?

 

[oggbashan]

Hopefully you will get someone actually French to give you a completely correct version. Your chances are high, I've even managed to get help on this board with Welsh translations If you don't get someone straightaway, bump the thread.

-I'm crazy about you.
Je suis fou de toi

-I can't stop thinking about you.
Je peux pas pas arrêter de penser à vous
I think this might be a more idiomatic version: Je ne peux pas m'arrêter de penser à toi

-We are in love with you.
Nous sommes amoureux de toi.
(I have used the male plural version of 'amoureux' to be in love.)

Bear in mind that 'toi' is the more intimate format for 'you', whereas 'vous' is used if you don't know a person so well.

If you are talking about love, tutoyer (using the 'tu' form) is the only way to go unless you mean plural you.

 

[EverLux]

If you are talking about love, tutoyer (using the 'tu' form) is the only way to go unless you mean plural you.

I was all set to use her translations, and now you've confused my poor American brain

 

[oggbashan]

-I'm crazy about you.
Je suis fou de toi

-I can't stop thinking about you.
Je peux pas pas arrêter de penser à vous [NOT THIS ONE]
I think this might be a more idiomatic version: Je ne peux pas m'arrêter de penser à toi

-We are in love with you.
Nous sommes amoureux de toi.
(I have used the male plural version of 'amoureux' to be in love.)

Bear in mind that 'toi' is the more intimate format for 'you', whereas 'vous' is used if you don't know a person so well.

If you are talking about love, tutoyer (using the 'tu' form) is the only way to go unless you mean plural you.

I was all set to use her translations, and now you've confused my poor American brain

Tutoyer - to use the 'tu' form of address is a complex social construct in French, much less so than it used to be decades ago, but still difficult for foreigners to get right without inadvertently causing offence. A parent would call a child 'tu'. A child might or might not call a parent 'tu'. That depends on social and family conventions. Younger friends, say teens or twenties, are likely to use the 'tu' form between themselves. Older people might, or might not. In the 1950s husbands and wives might use the formal 'vous' except in bed together. Now? Most would use 'tu'.

I have marked the one of Naoko's translations NOT to use. "Vous" is you plural or you formally. You would NOT use it when talking to one person about love.

But why do you want the last sentence - "We are in love with you"?

That isn't one man talking to one woman but two or several men talking to whom? One woman or two women? That causes confusion for anyone trying to translate for you. The French for that would vary depending on what you really mean.

Je t'aime means "I (singular) love you (singular)" and is enough for a man in love with a woman or a woman in love with a man.

The easy way that I use for any non-English statement is a simple cop out - for example: I told her, in French, that I loved her. Problem solved!

 

[Penuche]

<snip>
-I'm crazy about you. <snip>

This one I can definitely do "Je t'aime à la folie".

Naoko's version is correct, but AFAIK this is probably more what you'd hear.

 

[EverLux]

But why do you want the last sentence - "We are in love with you"?

That isn't one man talking to one woman but two or several men talking to whom? One woman or two women? That causes confusion for anyone trying to translate for you. The French for that would vary depending on what you really mean.

Je t'aime means "I (singular) love you (singular)" and is enough for a man in love with a woman or a woman in love with a man.

The easy way that I use for any non-English statement is a simple cop out - for example: I told her, in French, that I loved her. Problem solved!

I appreciate the lesson. Thank you

And, yes, some context probably would've been helpful. My story is MMF, where both men fall in love with the woman, hence the "we." I'd go with the cop out, but my Muse went and made the French lines important to me

 

[OliviaM]

I appreciate the lesson. Thank you

And, yes, some context probably would've been helpful. My story is MMF, where both men fall in love with the woman, hence the "we." I'd go with the cop out, but my Muse went and made the French lines important to me

I think the French is more evocative.

 

[Penuche]

I think the French is more evocative.

Sexiness or exoticness of a language and its accents is pretty subjective, but it's still worth bearing in mind.

 

[oggbashan]

I think the French is more evocative.

Sexiness or exoticness of a language and its accents is pretty subjective, but it's still worth bearing in mind.

The problem with using French or any other language in a story written in English is that the reader might not know enough French (or whatever) to get the meaning. That is particularly true on Literotica when the readers can read English but it might not be their native language.

Dorothy L Sayers was notorious for using French and Latin in her detective stories and NOT giving a translation. She assumed that anyone reading her stories was educated sufficiently to understand French and Latin.

 

[EverLux]

I think the French is more evocative.

I've had this little snippet of a scene in my head, and I'm too stubborn to write it any other way, now. The hottie with the man-bun must speak French.

 

[EverLux]

The problem with using French or any other language in a story written in English is that the reader might not know enough French (or whatever) to get the meaning. That is particularly true on Literotica when the readers can read English but it might not be their native language.

Dorothy L Sayers was notorious for using French and Latin in her detective stories and NOT giving a translation. She assumed that anyone reading her stories was educated sufficiently to understand French and Latin.

I remember reading Lolita (pre-Google Translate) and being frustrated and distracted by all the French.

I'm no Nabakov. I'll keep it to just the three lines

 

[HandsInTheDark]

I've had this little snippet of a scene in my head, and I'm too stubborn to write it any other way, now. The hottie with the man-bun must speak French.

I get like this sometimes with characters. Some characteristic *absolutely has to be present*, often one I didn't know about when I started. Usually, I find out it's key to the story later on; I just didn't know it up front.

So always follow those "musts".

 

[EverLux]

I get like this sometimes with characters. Some characteristic *absolutely has to be present*, often one I didn't know about when I started. Usually, I find out it's key to the story later on; I just didn't know it up front.

So always follow those "musts".

That's pretty much what happened here. I was writing dialogue for the first scene between this particular guy and the girl, and it felt more like I was listening in and taking dictation. Next thing you know, the guy speaks fluent French. And yes, it's an absolutely "must".

 

[OliviaM]

I've had this little snippet of a scene in my head, and I'm too stubborn to write it any other way, now. The hottie with the man-bun must speak French.

 

[Penuche]

That's pretty much what happened here. I was writing dialogue for the first scene between this particular guy and the girl, and it felt more like I was listening in and taking dictation. Next thing you know, the guy speaks fluent French. And yes, it's an absolutely "must".

Fair enough - some characters seem to insist on doing whatever they please in spite of your/my ideas about them...

 

[NaokoSmith]

This one I can definitely do "Je t'aime à la folie".

Naoko's version is correct, but AFAIK this is probably more what you'd hear.

That's a much better version. There's a charming French rhyme which they say while picking petals off a daisy:
Il m'aime un peu, beaucoup, passionnément, à la folie, pas du tout.
(He loves me a little, a lot, passionately, to the edge of madness, not at all.)

Ogg is quite right about the tutoyer, too.

 

[Penuche]

<snip>Ogg is quite right about the tutoyer, too.

It's something which French and German have in common - you don't use the formal version of "you" with somebody if you're at all intimate or informal with them (this includes children, dogs, social inferiors...).

The exception to this might be a BDSM scene in which an anglophone would say "sir" or "master" but a francophone might say "vous" and a German speaker might say "Sie" and leave out the honourifics.

 

[Kantarii]

French fries, French curls, French nails, and French kissing..... That's my basic survival French. It's a good thing I kept up with the basics since high school; I don't know how I would have made it this far in life without the basicsKant

 

[Tio_Narratore]

If you do use "vous" with "aimer," the verb would be taken as "like" rather than "love."

Translations can be difficult, and idioms, in particular, should not be directly translated; one needs to find an idiom in the other language that carries the same meaning. "I'm crazy about you," though, does translate pretty directly as noted above by Naoko. "Je suis fou de toi" is what you would hear in modern French. ("Je suis folle de toi" if it were a woman speaking). (I'm presuming your story is in the present).

Here's a link to a page that might be helpful: French Love Phrases

And, since your story is MMF, you might want to take a look at the classic Truffault film, Jules et Jim, for some ideas and phrases.