Hello,
I have a question about translating an expression from English to French.
In the article in question, a mayor says in an interview that he will go have a taco meal to support the Latino community, after police officers in the town were arrested for abuse of power against Latinos. When the reporter interviewing him remarked that this was not an appropriate comment, the mayor became defensive and told the reporter to 'take his best shot.'
This is an expression we use quite often in English, both literally when challenging another to a fist fight, and figuratively, as it was used here.
But there is no equivalent in French - "prenez votre meilleur coup" doesn't exist. The closest corresponding expression would be "allez-y pour voir", which is not literally the same thing, but which is used under the similar circumstances to convey a challenge. This translation was rejected for a test - so in this type of case, is there a mygengo protocol for translating an expression that has no equivalent?
Thanks in advance for your response - and also, because I'm racking my brain for what other translation would work - is there another translation that would work?
Sincerely,
gabimondesire
8 comments
If "taking one's best shot" refers to "making one's best effort or attempt to achieve a goal",
then "Take your best shot !" could be translated as "Essayez de faire de votre mieux !".
I do not know of MyGengo's principles, but I think that when there is no direct equivalent to an expression in the target language, it would be good to check if there is another expression with the exact same meaning, and which may have a direct equivalent.
(This is just a personal advice based on personal experience)
Thanks! I did consider "faites de votre mieux", but when I ran it by francophones, they advised me that between the two expressions, allez-y pour voir corresponded most accurately to the situation in the article.
I suggest that the use of "vous l'arrangez au mieux" would be an expression that would best fit the requirement here.
Hi, without anymore context I would translate it as 'fais mieux si tu peux!'.
It involves a kind of aggresivity but which can be ok in this particular case.
Perhaps next time you will provide the general context.
Best regards
In the context you're talking about, like a fight it will be : "Vas-y met tout ce que tu as" ou "Essaye de faire mieux"
This thread is old, but I'd like to comment anyway. I think it shows the reason why a translation should always be made from a foreign language INTO YOUR MOTHERTONGUE, and not the opposite. You've be given quite a lot of bad advices up there and I do hope you didn't use them in your translations. The only option which doesn't shock me as totally unnatural or unfitting is the one given by patrick.arouette : "fais mieux si tu peux", or rather "faites mieux si vous pouvez". I would have use "eh bien allez-y, faites mieux/trouvez mieux".
Though I understand very very well English, as you can see my writing skills are far from being perfect. That's why I would never do a translation from French to English. Even if you are almost bilingual, you will never have the same "sensibility" for a language other than your mothertongue, and you'll be faced with huge mistakes like this one. It's more important to master the target language than the source one. You can always find ways to understand the source language. You can't find ways to adapt the target one if it's not your mothertongue.