Россия ведет позорную войну с Украиной.     Поддержи Украину!
Делиться
Размер шрифта
Перевод
Поменять языки местами

The Javanaise

I confess, I went through hell, not you,
My love.
Before I got wind of you,1
My love.
 
Whether you admit it or not
As we danced the Javanaise,
We loved each other
For the time of one song.
 
In your opinion, what have we seen
Of love?
From you to me, you have had me,
My love.
 
Whether you admit it or not
As we danced the Javanaise,
We loved each other
For the time of one song.
 
Alas, April was in vain
When it came to love.
I felt like seeing
That love in you.
 
Whether you admit it or not
As we danced the Javanaise,
We loved each other
For the time of one song.
 
Life is not worth being lived
Without love,
But it's you who wanted it,
My love.
 
Whether you admit it or not
As we danced the Javanaise,
We loved each other
For the time of one song.
 
  • 1. He uses the formal you, vous, rather than the familiar tu. While it is or at least was a custom among the rich to address even your wife or husband this way, I think here it implies that he hardly knew this woman, though he thought that he was in love with her.
Оригинальный текст

La Javanaise

Нажмите, чтобы увидеть оригинальный текст (Французский)

Комментарии
JadisJadis    пн, 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" ?)

PreslynnPreslynn
   пн, 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 PickNancy Pick    сб, 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.