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I have a French question, kinda easy?
Please make sure you're actually qualified to answer this (if you're just guessing don't bother) because it's for a big project and it's very important that I don't make a mistake. So I'm writing a story in French, and if I want to make my character (a ghost) say, "It's my shoe. I had it when I was alive." then would this be correct?
"C'est ma chaussure. J’ai lui eu pendant ma vivant."
The most important part is the second sentence. Is that right? Are the pronouns and order of the verbs all correct? If not, could someone correct it for me? Thanks!
Something I should have mentioned! My French teacher always corrects the pronouns regarded the shoe from 'lui' to 'la'. Google Translate says that if I had 'la' instead of 'lui', then the sentence would read in English, "I have had during my lifetime." But then again, Google Translate is kind of really horrible. Especially considering my teacher's corrections, is lui correct, or is la?
1 Answer
- RaymondLv 77 years agoFavorite Answer
Literal translation:
"It's my shoe. I had it when I was alive." = ''C'est ma chaussure. Je l'avais quand j'étais en vie.''
Bad, bad. Pretty bad (though syntaxically 'correct') French.
Literal translations from English to French - and vice versa - are correct just about one time out of ten (''It's my shoe'' = ''C'est ma chaussure'' being one example of those *Subject-Verb-Complement* [simple] sentences that CAN be translated literally - occasionally...).
As for your second sentence...:
- ''Elle m'appartenait lorsque j'étais de ce monde.''
- ''Elle m'appartenait du temps que j'étais du monde des vivants.''
- ''Cette chaussure m'appartenait du temps que j'étais en vie/encore en vie/de ce monde/du monde des vivants.''
... are all possible *idiomatic* translations, depending on context and/or style of your actual text. :-)
Best,
Raymond
Source(s): Native French speaker / Teacher
