la premiere moitie

[Katerina James]

Pendant la premiere moitie du XVIII siecle, la Nouvelle-France s'etendait de Louisbourg a la pointe du Cap-Breton jusqu'a la region des Grands Lacs et aux grandes plaines en passant par le Saint-Laurent.

 

For the first half of the 18th century, the New France stretches itself from Louisbourg to the point of Cape Breton until the region  of Great Lakes and to the Great Plains in the loop by Saint Lawrence.

 

Merci!

[Neil Coffey]

I think you've more or less understood the French-- there are just a few points with the English.

- no need to put an article before "New France"

- in English, you usually only use the "itself" form if you're talking about somebody/something that can actually perform actions on itself. Otherwise, just use the intransitive verb: "New France stretched/extended from..."

- I'm not a geography expert, but I think they mean that Louisbourg is on the tip of Cape Breton (and you'd usually say "tip" rather than "point", I think)

- "as far as" the region of the Great Lakes, though you could also use an expression such as "right the way down to" (assuming that´s the direction -- check on a map...)

- "en passant par" is a bit tricky -- it's common in French to put the 'midpoint' of a path/journey at the end of the sentence. In English, I'd turn it round and say "....stretched past Saint Lawrence and right the way down to the Great Lakes and the Great Plains."

If you really want to keep the French order, you could say e.g. "...and running past Saint Lawrence along the way". I don't think it sounds as natural unless you're talking about an actual journey, though.

[stu harris]

Yes, Louisbourg is part of Cap-Breton.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisbourg

My attempt:

During the first half of the 18th century, Nouvelle France extended from Louisbourg, on the tip of Cap Breton, the length of the St Lawrence and down as far as the Great Lakes and the vast prairies.

I'm being sensitive to the fact that Grands Lacs is capitalised but grandes plaines isn't. But I wonder why the author stopped at the prairie. The territory stretched all the way to the Gulf of Mexico!

[stu harris]

Better make that Cape Breton, that's how it is on English-language maps.

[Neil Coffey]

Yes, I think you're right about "grandes plaines" -- I mistakenly adopted the OP's translation without actually cross-chceking with the original.

[Gustaf Drevin]

You have missed out on a number of diacritic marks (`and ´), if it was you who wrote the French text. Maybe, the translation to English should more like: "During the first half of the 18th century, New France extended itself from Louisbourg at the point of Cape Breton to the region of the Great Lakes and the great plains (the last part I couldn't really understand... I'm not that great at this myself!).

[stu harris]

OK,  but as Neil already pointed out extended itself is not what a native English speaker would write. Neil's charmingly averse to saying anything is actually wrong, but I'm not. It's wrong. :-)

[Charles D]

I notice in the French that there is a "le" before Saint-Laurent.  Are you speaking of the river?  If so, and since Cape Breton in on the north-eastern point of Nova Scotia, perhaps a more concise reading of the passage would be "During the first half of the eighteenth century, New France stretched along the St. Lawrence (River) from Cape Breton to the Great Lakes and on to the great plaines."  In fact, it did.  And as Stu points out, it actually continued south along the Mississippi to the Gulf.

[Katerina James]

All you guys are brilliant. I was surprised by the witty remarks each made. I dunno what to say except that I am eagerly awaiting for more corrections from you in my future translations plus the fact that the ladies of Montreal are really the most beautiful ladies in the world. I met 2 today! lol