Jadis
Mon, 21/01/2019 - 08:58
I guess "I went thought hell" is for "I went through hell" ? (which would seem OK)
But "ne vous déplaise" doesn't mean "do not be pleased", it's rather "whether you like it or not", "whether you admit it or not".
And "As we dance the Javanaise" would rather be "As we were dancing the Javanaise" ? (past time), (or "While dancing the Javanaise" ?)
Preslynn
Mon, 21/01/2019 - 19:14
Yes, that was a typo. It's meant to be "went through hell" which MIGHT be too much but it's one way to translate this, as far as I know, and it seemed fitting when keeping in mind that this is a Gainsbourg song.
I consider "As we dance" as a synonymy of "While dancing" which is why I translated it that way. Maybe I'm just thinking too "English" here? But duh, the whole thing is in the past tense so I should have put it in the past tense.
"Ne vous déplaise"--I kept thinking that it couldn't be that and that I had to just scrap the translation or ask...and then did the stupidest thing a person could possibly do! I looked at the German translation, which made the same mistake and decided my mistake must be fine because another non native speaker also made it.
Thank you so much for the help. As you can tell, I'm not a native speaker of French, but I try.
Nancy Pick
Sat, 09/03/2024 - 13:44
For “Ne vous déplaise,” Walter Dubois uses “I mean no offense,” which seems closer to the original! His book of Gainsbourg lyric translations into English, “Love on the Beat,” is highly recommended. By the way, “La Javanaise” is playing with a form of French slang something like pig-latin, called Javanais, that inserts “av” syllables into words to create a secret language. Gainsbourg’s hero Boris Vian wrote a song to help people learn it. (The word “bonjour” becomes bavonjavour.) Although Gainsbourg’s song isn’t actually written in Javanais, it is packed with “av” syllables. He was brilliant at wordplay.
tyrphon
Sat, 20/07/2024 - 08:40
I agree with Nancy Pick's comment about the "Javanais" slang.*.
So,if Gainsbourg uses "vous" instead of "tu", it is mainly for the sound.
« J’avoue j’en ai bavé, pas vous ? » sounds like « Javoujanébavépavou ».
« Avant d’avoir eu vent de vous » sounds like « avadavoaruvadevou ».
(By the way, that means "before I heard about you").
Now, why do they dance « la javanaise » ? It refers to a low class french dance, « la java »,which has been practiced in Parisian « bals musettes » since 1910, a very fast kind of waltz or mazurka with small steps, where the man is very close to the woman and often holds her by the… bottom of her back !
Now, excuse me for my poor « Anglais » or, should I say, « Avanglavais ».
birkin
I cannot believe that this song had five translations and not one of them was English.