Visions of Thor
In a French exam at school, I had a mental block during a French-English translation. The sentence was il a jeté son manteau sur son bras which I translated as "he threw his hammer over his arm". At the time, I remember thinking it was a little strange, but wrote it anyway! I'd confused the word le manteau, coat, with le marteau, hammer, - but I'll never get the two mixed up again!
Sent by: Linda
Comments
Eibhilin
2006-01-02
I know the feeling ... it's so easy to make mistakes like that in translation. My friend translated someone's dad as working 'on the underground' instead of 'overtime' in a German lesson. Note: She improved after that.
Yes, I made the same confussion. My first potentially confrontational situation in French. I'd borrowed a hammer from a French guy camping a few pitches down from us - my French girlfriend and myself - who lay laughing as I explained that I had broken his "coat" on the hard dry ground of the Côte d'Azur. I did quickly correct myself though and he laughed and didn't hit me - progress indeed. I did however impress myself by explaining that the reason that it broke was because - aside from the hammer being s^&* - the tent pegs (les sardines) where too thick for the Côte d'Azur as I'd only camped in Wales and Scotland before this trip.
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