How do I say` Hello good morning Christophe I would love to come to your Birthday Party.See you then, love Brad and Shell.

Hello, where can I translate whole phrases like the one above please?

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EducatorPermalink Reply by stu harris on January 7, 2011 at 3:56pm

I'll be interested indeed in the native French response to this. Although it seems an incredibly simple translation, I can't think of a direct translation of:

Hello (sometimes the English word is used, certainly everyone understands it)

See you then

Love (in French there's no "informal love" as far as I know. There's nothing between amitiés and je t'aime)

I could easily be wrong. Anyway, here's a suggestion for a looser translation and I'm sure something better will be along later in the day:

Cou-cou, bonjour Christophe, je venirai à ta fête d'anniv avec grand plaisir. A plus tard, amitiés, Brad et Shell.

I'm assuming that Christophe is a close enough friend to be addressed as tu rather than vous. Dear me, the complications of a simple message!

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Permalink Reply by Benoît on January 7, 2011 at 4:36pm

Native French response:

I just try Google translation and the result is quite surprising and definitely unusable...
But it's not always the case, Google or Reverso can give good "approximate translation".

In your case:
Hello: "Salut" (familier) or "Bonjour" or "Cou-cou" (très familier) or many others if you're familiar with the reader (ciao, yop, comment qu'c'est...)
See you then: as I understand this, you can say "On s'y retrouve" or "J'ai hâte de t'y voir" or "Nous avons hâte de t'y retrouver"...
Love: "Bises" (familier) or "Amitiés" or others if you're familiar with the reader…

So one proposal:
"Salut Christophe, nous viendrons à ton anniversaire avec grand plaisir. Nous avons hâte de t'y retrouver. Bises, Brad et Shell."

Stu, your "je venirai" is pretty daring (nice but daring...)
PS: If I make mistakes in English, please just tell me...

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EducatorPermalink Reply by stu harris on January 7, 2011 at 5:22pm

I definitely like salut for hello, should have thought of that.

I dunno about anniversaire vs. fête d'anniv. Isn't that the difference between attending the party vs. attending the birthday itself?

Is je venirai daring because it might mean je jouirai? That would certainly be a surprise RSVP!

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Permalink Reply by Benoît on January 7, 2011 at 6:29pm

By contraction (I suppose) we use simply “aller (participer) à un anniversaire”.

But "Participer (aller) à une fête d'anniversaire" is perfectly correct.

You can also use “Fêter un anniversaire". (ex : Hier, nous avons fêter son anniversaire dans un resto vraiment sympa)

I use “pretty daring” because I’m not really good at English and I often do literal translation between French and English…

In this particular case “venirai” doesn’t exist (Venir is irregular => “Je viendrai” is the proper form)

When French friends use word that doesn’t exist, or say something with an “improbable accent” (where I leave there are many “improbable pronunciations”), I use to say: “plutôt osée comme expression” or “un peu osée cette expression”…

By the way, one of my reasons to be on this forum is to improve my English skills, so if something like “pretty daring” (or any expression I use) can’t be understood by English people, don’t hesitate to let me know…