French questions

[Bernard]

Can any of you dudes translate these into French?

"To cope from the loss of his wife, a man obeys the orders on a cassette tape."

and

"A husband arrives home from work, just like any other day. Today, however, he finds that his wife is nowhere to be found. In her place, he discovers a cassette player and tape.

Four months later, he lives his life according to a new routine, one dictated by the tape: each day brings a new name he must find. Today's name is Elizabeth Pristen."

Gracias!

[edison]

It's always a bit awkward with no context, but provided you don't need to have them published anywhere, this should do:

"Pour faire face à la perte de son épouse, un homme obéit aux ordres enregistrés sur une cassette audio."

"Un homme rentre chez lui après son travail. Mais aujourd'hui, sa femme est introuvable. A sa place, il découvre une cassette audio et un lecteur.

Quatre mois plus tard, il vit sa vie selon une nouvelle routine, qui lui est dictée par la cassette : chaque jour lui apporte un nouveau nom à trouver. Aujourd'hui, ce nom est celui d'Elizabeth Pristen."

[Bernard]

We do need to have them published, actually -- it's for submitting films to Cannes. They require summaries in French. Does that context help?

[diesel_powered]

I can't speak for the French, but the English has certainly piqued my interest.

[ieatrats]

About $0.02 worth, but as a linguist who works in a place where computers do everything and things like translation are assumed to be fine from anyone who speaks a language (or more often, from a computer) I would say if you're submitting to Cannes you'd want to get a professional translator.

Preferably one who does PR for film (though I'd guess a garden variety literary translator would do), even if it's just a few sentences.

Translation is a very undervalued skill.  This would be one of the times it matters if it's done well, though heh maybe you submit films to Cannes every other day and this is like a note to the mailman to ring the bell.

//speaks and writes fluent French but can't say anything about Edison's translation, though they're certainly accurate for content.

[alex]

Thing is, edison is a professional translator.

[edison]

Yeah, but I should point out that I spend my days translating political sociology texts into English, so I'm a bit out of my depth here. The context does help, as it always does (as a rule, the more context there is, the better) - I think for that particular use it'd be good to have the translation less close to the English so that it flows better, but maybe a more lengthy summary or any other information you might have about the movie would help. Feel free to PM if you need further help!

(although ieatrats is right, if you or whoever you're doing this for have about 30 dollars to spare, it would probably be a good idea to have a professional translator specialized in that kind of thing take a shot at it)

Out of curiosity, ieatrats, what do you do precisely?

[alistarr*]

Can any of you dudes translate these into French?

"To cope from the loss of his wife, a man obeys the orders on a cassette tape."

and

"A husband arrives home from work, just like any other day. Today, however, he finds that his wife is nowhere to be found. In her place, he discovers a cassette player and tape.

Four months later, he lives his life according to a new routine, one dictated by the tape: each day brings a new name he must find. Today's name is Elizabeth Pristen."

Gracias!

edison's translations read nicely to me (like he says, a slightly looser translation might make for a better press release), but are you set on the english versions? "to cope from..." in particular doesn't read very well - surely "[in order] to cope with..." or "[in order] to cope following..." would be the correct grammar? if it were my film, i think i'd go for something a little more like "following the loss of his wife, a man finds solace in the instructions of a recorded audio cassette".

don't mean to pick apart your/someone else's work* - just thought it was worth mentioning in case you were in the mood for some feedback!

*and, given that you're having to translate it, maybe you don't even care about the english at this point beyond getting the sense there.

[edison]

I also thought the "To cope from..." sentence sounded a little bit awkward, yeah.

[Bernard]

Thank you all for the comments, I really appreciate all the suggestions. It's a friend's project, so no worries about hurt feelings, I think he'll be happy for anything that makes it better. Any suggestions on where to look for a professional translator? I'm sure there must be somebody good in LA but I haven't got the faintest idea where to look.

[edison]

Word of mouth will often be the best and simplest way of finding someone reliable, I think.
Otherwise, you might want to have a look there:
http://www.proz.com/translator-directory/
http://www.translatorscafe.com/cafe/default.asp

[Bernard]

Muchas gracias! I passed along the info, hopefully my friend will get his stuff squared up.

[cold before sunrise]

a bird told me that bernard will make a fine future wife.