Re: OT: French Idioms (was Re: Char type verification)

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Sun, 19 Nov 2006 02:19:00 GMT, Jeffrey R. Carter wrote:

> Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:
>>>
>> 	Okay... I did say 22 year old HS course <G> As I recall the first
>> page of the textbook basically inflicted
>> 
>> 	Bonjour, je m'appelle Danielle
>> 
>> upon the students, only explaining it as "hello, my name is Danielle".
>> Which again could reflect idioms... After all, if someone introduced
>> themselves with "Hello, I call myself Danielle" my mind would be going
>> "... and what do others call you?" (after all, online, and at FurCon's,
>> I "call myself" Wulfraed... but that is not my legal name)
> 
> That's the idiomatic translation. When I consider the literal 
> translation, I always wonder the same thing. Of course, when I hear a 
> song that says, "You get the best of my love," I always wonder who gets 
> the rest.

The most outrageous is German "Ich bedanke mich," which literally it is "I
thank myself," but is used to say "I thank you." (:-))
 
> I find the French reflexive verbs interesting. When I'm thinking in 
> French (which I don't do much anymore), they make perfect sense. The 
> literal translations, though, are meaningless. For example, the French 
> equivalent of "I brush my hair" is "Je me brosse les cheveux". 
> Literally, that means, "I brush myself the hairs."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexive_verb

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de