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William Matheson's Journal
Aug. 3rd, 2007
10:51 am - La Femme Peintre (“The Paintress”) - English Version
(Original La Femme Peintre - in French)
La Femme Peintre (“The Paintress”*) – English Version
A very short story by William Matheson
( La Femme Peintre - English Version )
* - Just as waitresses and stewardesses have become waiters and flight attendants; paintresses have long since become painters. In French it’s a little different (for example, a male student is un étudiant, a female is une étudiante), and gender distinctions apply to professions, nouns (especially) and even adjectives. Since the title in French had to be “the (woman) painter,” the English title should reflect that.
It should be noted again that this was much more valuable to me as a language exercise than as a story (although it’s the first story I’ve completed in a very long time). I hope it comes off as being simple rather than just simplistic.
** - One thing this story loses entirely in English is the transition from formal to informal methods of address. In French, this was a useful storytelling device, and could be used to great atmospheric effect. You will have to imagine the characters using “vous” towards the beginning and “tu” creeping in towards the end. You’ll also have to imagine most of the first paragraph being written with forms of be (être) and have (avoir), the passé simple, that are not used in everyday speech. The best I could do was write “There was one time” in Middle English.
*** - This phrase unwittingly emulates most of my French expression at Sainte-Anne. You can also tell I was getting lazy at the keyboard; in English, I would probably not write, “Oh… oh, ok,” – I would probably write, “She nodded with understanding.” But that would mean I’d have to look up ‘nodded,’ et ça ne marche pas de tout! Je suis un auteur vitesse.
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rushedJul. 23rd, 2007
02:04 pm - La Femme Peintre
In another instalment of Learn Time Management The Fun and Easy Way with William Matheson, I stayed up more than half the night writing this short story in French. It was a tremendous learning experience, with tenses, vocabulary, genders, pronouns and prepositions (for the most part still misused, but I learned a little)... last night I might as well have been back at Sainte-Anne. It's fun to get out sometimes and learn some things on your own, but I must throw some water on the romantic notion of the thing and remind myself and everyone that it's an awful lot of work.
That being said, here's the story. Enjoy, and please don't hesitate to correct my grammar or suggest improvements to my style! I'll post the translation next week - if I posted it now, everybody would just read the translation and nobody would learn anything! =)
( La Femme Peintre... )
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tired