Calling on the phone

[Crack1]

Je vous appellerai demain.
I will call you tomorrow.

Je peux vous appeler demain.
I can call you tomorrow.

Je vous appellerai plus tard sur,
I will call you later on,


Je peux vous appeler plus tard sur.
I can call you later on.

I think my French sentences are not 100% correct.

Please correct them.

[stella]

sentences are ok except that you don't translate "on" by "sur" at the end of the phrase.
so it's je peux vous appeler plus tard, et je vous appellerai plus tard.

[Crack1]

Thanks french flower

Shall I call you tomorrow?
Peux-je vous appeler demain ?

Shall I call you later on?
Peux-je vous appeler plus tard?

May I call you tomorrow?
Peut-être je vous appeler demain ?

May I call you later on?
Peut-être je vous appeler plus tard ?

Have I properly translated the words 'may' and 'shall'?
I think it is incorrect to use the word 'peut-être'. Usually 'peut-être' means perhaps.

[stella]

yes, peut-être is perhaps or maybe. so the translations are:
1- pourrais-je vous appeler demain? (peux-je doesn't exist)
2- pourrais-je vous appeler plus tard?
3- puis-je vous appeler demain?
4-puis-je vous appeler plus tard?
but, ideally, we will use easier "est-ce je pourrais vous appeler, ou, est-ce que je peux vous appeler".
It is less formal.

[Jan Loose]

Je vous appellerai plus tard sur
Je vous appellerai plus tard sur

[Frank]

The 1st and the 2nd ones are absolutely correct.

However, don't abuse of the "sur" word. If you want to literally translate "for sure", use "à coup sûr", as in "Je vous appellerai plus tard, à coup sûr". Although in this case, "Je vous appellerai plus tard, c'est promis" (you make a promise) would sound more natural.

"Je peux" means that you might or that you can, not that you will. So it's not 100% sure. So don't add "sure" or anything that would mean the same thing.

[Neil Coffey]

Frank -- in this case, the word sur was a confusion with the English word on.

In English, it's commn to add certain prepositions to emphasis a particular notion that don't actually carry much meaning per se and aren't always translated. So here, on emphasises "continuation" from the present time, but essentially later on means "later" and the difference is too subtle to usually bother trying to render. (Maybe later on is closer to un peu plus tard, but it's really arguable.)

Another case that crops up is with some verbs of motion, where it's common to encode direction as a preposition in English, but in French the direction is either not encoded at all, or encoded in the choice of verb. For example, it's common in English to say, for example, I'm going up to Scotland for the weekend, they came over from Manchester, I'll be down in Wales. In these cases, it doesn't always add very much to try and translate the preposition. For example, you could say e.g. ils sont venus de Manchester en passant par la montagne if you're desparate to translate the notion of "over", but really the essential meaning is ils sont venus de Manchester.