help my french!

[hubbike]

to say my french is rusty is an understatement, it has corroded away completely....

can anyone translate a few useful phrases for me....

1. Is there somewhere I can camp around here?
2. Can you fill up my bottles with water, please.
3. Where can I buy <bread, food, methalated spirits, etc>?
4. Which way do I go to get to <name of city>?

Thanks....

 

[slowmotion]

Babelfish is an on-line translation site...

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/

Select which languages you wish to translate from and to, paste or type the text into the box, and Bingo! OK, it is sometimes a bit wonky, but it isn't too bad.

Good luck.

 

[slowmotion]

1. Y a-t-il quelque part je peut-il camper autour d'ici ? 2. Pouvez vous remplir mes bouteilles avec de l'eau, svp. 3. Où peux-je acheter ? 4. À quelle manière est-ce que je vais obtenir ? Merci….

Well, that's how Babelfish put it.


Actually, Babelfish probably got confused by the brackets in your original post. They are usually a lot better.

 

[slowmotion]

pour dire mon français est rouillé est une sousestimation, il a corrodé loin complètement….

Nice one.

 

[the_mikey]

Google have a translator too..

Babelfish is good, but I was pleasantly surprised by this new translator from google, if you have a webpage you want to translate, dump the url into the text box and it'll give you a link where you can see the translated page.

Also you can just type in phrases and it'll do the translation for you.

 

[andym]

A water bottle 'un bidon' but bouteille will work too.

Bread is le pain but you might be better off asking for une boulangerie (bread shop/bakery). Food is la nourriture but a food shop is un magasin d'alimentation and a supermarket is un supermarché. Meths is alcool à bruler.

I would be very wary of google and babelfish. In Italy there's a whole website devoted to hilarious mistranslations from Italian into English for example the Italian for a free kick is un calcio di punizione - the literal translation is a 'punishment kick' - which conjures up all sorts of images.

A decent phrase book/dictionary might be a good idea - although talking surreal French courtesy Babelfish might be quite a good way to break the ice. At least once they've worked out what you are trying to say.

Oh and a good technique for asking directions is to ask :

[place name] est par ici? (is this the way to...?)

So if you are on the right track you should get an answer that's easy to understand.

Alternatively you could add

... Ou par là? (or this way?)

which still gives you a fighting chance ofunderstanding the reply.

 

[GrahamG]

Can't beat a good quality pocket phrasebook. Given that we took three different language books away with us this summer I was very careful to pick one that had all the useful stuff covered - only brand that had the full range of camping stuff (and a few cycling titbits) was Lonely Planet. Really nice and easy to use, well presented, both to me (reasonable at the 'romantic' languages) and to my other half (only 'gets' anything with links to flemish after living there for a year as a child).

 

[andym]

Or if you have an iPod you can get electronic versions of the LP phrasebooks (although the Odyssey Translatoe series are worth checking out. The lastminute.com freebies are basic but free.

Save a lot of weight but not much help if you need to ask 'my iPod battery is flat. Can I recharge it here?'

 

[PpPete]

1. Y a-t-il quelque part je peut-il camper autour d'ici ? 2. Pouvez vous remplir mes bouteilles avec de l'eau, svp. 3. Où peux-je acheter ? 4. À quelle manière est-ce que je vais obtenir ? Merci….

Babelfish = Worse than useless I'm afraid.

A campsite is a "camping"
so - Est-ce qu'il ya un camping par ici ? will work fine

Est-ce qu'il ya un robinet pour remplir mes bidons? (where's the tap - but they'll offer to do it for you)

good advice from Andym on food ...

Asking directions
you might also try... Quel est le meilleur chemin pour <name of place> Chemin is literally path, but here it will be understood as "way". if you dressed as cyclist you should, hopefully, be directed on quieter roads.

 

[asterix]

the great thing is not to panic.

Start off with 'bon jour' or after 5 pm 'bon soir'.

basic vocabulary is your first need, forget the fancy tenses and all that stuff your best friend is

'je voudrais..' = 'I'd like..' followed by whatever you want, e.g. 'le camping'.

When asking directions

droite is right and gauche is left but tout droit strangely is go straight on!

having received the info you want

'merci, au revoir' thank you, good-bye.

I have been converting a barn in France for several years and I still don't understand my neighbour very well but we get on fine anyway.

 

[byegad]

Berlitz used to do a phrase book and sound cassette (The book was not a lot bigger than the cassette, so good for cycling weight wise.) called French for Travellers.

All the phrases you might need and some you won't. I used it to brush up my French before I travelled. I failed GCE French at progressively worse grades three times.
I also used the German version, I took German for two years and was thrown out of the class as being hopeless and the Dutch version, I've never studied Dutch, but the two years of German and being a Northerner helped too.

After a lot of French holidays I'm confident enough to chat in bad French, take my son to hospital when he cut his finger badly while we were camping and visit a GP for treatment for tonsillitis.

More importantly, I can shop and eat in restaurants in Germany confidently and manage in Dutch with phrase book in hand.

I'd be amazed if Berlitz have stopped producing the series.

 

[User169]

le singe est dans l'arbre

 

[smith4188]

Or if you have an iPod you can get electronic versions of the LP phrasebooks (although the Odyssey Translatoe series are worth checking out. The lastminute.com freebies are basic but free.

Save a lot of weight but not much help if you need to ask 'my iPod battery is flat. Can I recharge it here?'

Where exactly are the lastminute.com freebies? I've just been to look on their website and can't find anything, but maybe I'm being a melon.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

A few weeks ago kirstie had a similar thread in this forum - might be worth you going back a few pages.

 

[battered]

Kirstie's thread was very useful but I'd second the suggestion to buy a phrase book. They really work. I've used them in Greece and Slovakia, I speak neither language but a few minutes with the book gives you the required phrase.
As others have said the nest bet is "bonjour" and a smile This gets their attention, you can then buy time with "je cherche..." (I'm looking for, easy to remember as "I search") and then you can say "un camping", la route pour..., la boulangerie, le supermarche, de l'eau, or whatever. The book will be really useful though, it gives you key words and phrases. The thing to remember is that as a cyclotourist the French already like you so they don't want you to fail. If you make even a poor fist of it they will work out that the empty water bottles in your hands and the cucling gear mean that you are unlikely to be asking about foreign policy or whether Britain should join the Euro and give you what you need.