word order

[alan gould]

i may have asked this  a long time ago.  i was once told here that "french isn't always logical."  here's the sentence and translation:

Il s'est endormi tellement il était fatigue.      He was so tired that he fell asleep.

by english logic, it should be: il etait tellement fatigue' qu'il s'est endormi.  if i were to say that, it wouldn't be wrong would it?  if a french native used the first way, i could try to memorize this type of situation.  is this unique to the word "tellement" and maybe a few others?  i don't understand what is causing the word order.  Tx  

[George Hunt]

You can have the same structure in English.

eg "He fell asleep ,being so tired"

As it is so uncommon it feels odd but if adopted it would come to feel natural.

French is not "illogical" it just  has different syntactical (right word I hope) patterns than English.

It is a mistake to try to find exact translations of particular phrases-although it will probably get you through examinations to begin with.

[alan gould]

it could be used, but is not common.  in french, would it be more normal?  i think i would prefer to say he was so tired that he fell asleep and i think that would be fine.  

[George Hunt]

If you change the order of phrases within the sentence then you change the overall meaning.The order is part of the meaning.

There are all sorts of things that affect the overall meaning of a spoken or written communication .

An actor can repeat the same lines in a play word for word and yet the meaning will be different depending simply on emphases and length of pauses between words.

"Translating" between two different language systems is always going  to involve loss of original meaning.

If I even hear an English actor speaking with an American accent (the same lines) it will have a different meaning for me.

[Chantal Savignat]

"ll s'est endormi tellement il était fatigué" vs "il était tellement fatigué qu'il s'est endormi"

you doesn't need to memorize these two ways, the two are understood and used to say more or less the same thing. But with a slight difference. The difference is in the way you want to explain.

"ll s'est endormi tellement il était fatigué" : you want to speak about "he fell asleep" and you add a precision: because he was so tired.

 "il était tellement fatigué qu'il s'est endormi" : you want to speak about he was so tired and there is a result : he fell asleep.

But a lot of people use the two ways without distinction and without knowing the difference.

[alan gould]

truthfully, i'm having trouble seeing the difference.  but i get from it that i'll be fine translating it logically and the easiest way for me.  Tx

[Crack1]

 i was once told here that "french isn't always logical

 i was once told here that "French isn't always logical

by english logic,

by English logic,