Help, please

[Cyndi Kirschling]

What does "L'est en faisant n'importe quoi qu'on deviant n'importe qui" mean? Thanks

[Mushanga]

Bonjour,

I would translate by "It is by doing whatever( or garbage ) that you become whoever"

But I'm not sure, my Enslish isn't very good, sorry ....

It's the catchphrase of remi gaillard, isn't it ? Maybe you could find the translation on his site ....

Hope it helps !

[Stephen Bishop]

From here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9mi_Gaillard

we get

Remi's message is:"C'est en faisant n'importe quoi qu'on devient n'importe qui" which means: "It's by doing whatever, that one becomes whoever.".

[Cyndi Kirschling]

Thank you. This helps and I realize Remi spells the first letter with a "C" not an "L" like I thought it looked like!

So nice of you

and Stephen to reply so quickly. My daughter introduced me to Remi's videos and I still cannot stop smiling. Happy New Year to you both.

Cyndi :)

[Stephen Bishop]

Hi Cyndi,

I can't work out how that French sentence can be parsed into the Englkish one. It must be magic.

Have a great New Year and let's hope the world sorts itself out.

Steve :-)

[Charles D]

I think to make it sound more idiomatic inEnglish, one could say "It is by doing nothing that one becomes nobody".

[Neil Coffey]

I think this loses something of the French original, though. The French expressions "n'importe quoi" and "n'importe qui" have the meanings of "whatever, whoever" in either a positive sense of "anything/anybody you wish", or with the negative sense of "any old thing/person".

So I think the idea is double-edged: it can be interpreted as:

  "By doing what you choose to do, you become who you choose to be"

or it can be more negative:

  "If you just do any old thing, you'll just be any old person"

I can't really think of a terribly good translation that captures both extremes, though the saying "A man is the sum of his actions" maybe comes close.

[Cyndi Kirschling]

Such great replies! Where do I find people like all of you in real life to talk to? LOL

Thanks again, everyone,

Cyndi