Can someone check this birthday card note out for me? I’m a little rusty since high school and I’d like it to be somewhat grammatically correct. TIA!
–FCOD
It’s a tad clumsy, obviously written by someone who’s not native – or an automated translation. It says:
"*Happy birthday, Shane! We don’t speak French well, but we try our best! We hope that your day is splendid, and that you are receiving a good number of cards. You are in our prayers!
We hope you will have the amusement with these stickers of Shrek and Cars.
Love,*"
Passages that are odd include “nous essayons notre meilleur” for “we try our best”. Litteral translation – it’s not an actual idiom in French. “Nous espérons que votre jour est splendide” would be much better as “Nous espérons vous passez une splendide journée”. This is followed by “et cela vous recevez”, which should be “et que vous recevez”.
The last sentence is perhaps the worst, and the translation of “Cars”, when it’s obviously the title of a movie leads me to believe this was Babelfished. It should be: “Nous espérons que vous vous amuserez bien avec ces autocollants de Shrek et Cars.”
Thank you. It’s a hybrid of bad memory and Babelfish.
–FCOD
Isn’t it bon anniversaire, since l’anniversaire is a masculine noun?
“Bonne fete” is what I’d use, myself. There’s a circumflex accent on that first e of fete, but I can’t get my keyboard to do it.
I totally missed that one. I probably mentally corrected it and never noticed it was wrong in the first place.
“Bonne fête”, in my experience, is the more popular expression in Québec, but “bon anniversaire” and “joyeux anniversaire” are very common in France. They’re all correct, though. Out of curiosity, I did a Google search and all three expressions return almost the same number of hits, so they’re all equally common.
I’m not a native, but I think it would be “le français” in that second sentence. I believe for the name of the language the definite article is typically necessary.
No it’s not.
Je parle français
Tu parles anglais
Il parle espagnol
Nous parlons japonais
Vous parlez arabe
Ils parlent klingon
You can use the article but the nuance is slightly different. Here “parler français” is the more natural expression.
For a more detailed explanation: “parler français” conveys the sense of “speaking in French”. “Parler le français” is closer to “speaking the French (language)”.
Interesting. So to omit the article conveys an almost adverbial sense?
“Nous espérons que vous passez une splendide journée”, actually.
Here’s how I would rewrite this text (without making too many changes, and taking into account what people have already suggested):
Bon anniversaire, Shane! Nous ne parlons pas bien français, mais nous faisons de notre mieux! 
Nous espérons que vous passerez une splendide journée et que vous recevrez un bon nombre de cartes. Nous vous gardons dans nos prières.
Nous espérons que vous vous amuserez avec ces autocollants de Shrek et de Cars.
Who’s Shane, by the way? If it’s a child, as this seems to suggest, I’d use tu instead of vous.
Question. Shouldn’t the passages after “nous espérons…” be in the subjunctive?
(I only have a tiny bit of French, so this is practice for me…)
Le trésor de la langue française which is arguably the most in-depth reference on the French language classifies “français” in “parler français” as an adverb. Similarly-structured sentences include: “parler vite”, “parler fort”, “parler clairement”. (Fast, loud, and clearly.)
When you use the article, it becomes a noun. Contrast “parler la vérité” (speak the truth) with the adverbial examples above.
Addendum:
Aargh! Yes, absolutely. Proof-read, dammit, proof-read!
I don’t think so, but I’m not quite sure how to explain it (or even if I’m right). I’d say “nous espérons que vous passez une excellente journée” but “nous souhaitons que vous passiez une excellente journée”. I guess that the difference is that the second sentence is expressing a wish, while the first one isn’t quite doing so. But I don’t have my grammar here, so I can’t give any cite, and indeed I’m not even sure I’m correct.
I’d say “dire la vérité” actually, I don’t think “parler la vérité” is correct French.
No problem! 
I’ve always been taught that the subjunctive is required in subordinate clauses after verbs expressing a wish or a desire, except espérer.
Oh, okay then. As you can see, being a native French speaker means that I instinctively know if a construction is correct or not, but I have no idea about the actual grammar rules. 
People who speak it as a second language are much better with cites and explanations.
“Dire la vérité” (say the truth) is more likely to show up in a conversation, but “parler la vériter” (speak the truth) is nevertheless French. Though I’ll admit it’s not common and somewhat archaic. See for instance this excerpt from the Bible (Isaiah 33)
The expression “faire parler la vérité” (make the truth speak) is much more common but doesn’t really mean the same thing exactly.
As for the subjonctive use, espérer + subjonctive is correct but archaic.
J’espère qu’il fasse beau (subjonctive)
J’espère qu’il fait beau (present)
J’espère qu’il fera beau (future)
These are all valid but the first one isn’t used much (if at all) in spoken language anymore.
There’s a little boy in Canada with leukemia that wants to set the world record for most birthday cards received. His family has created a website: http://www.shaneswish.com. I read that he doesn’t speak English (his parents read the English cards to him) so my wife and I thought it’d be nice to try to write a note in French. I wasn’t sure whether to use tu or vous because he’s 8, but I don’t know him. Would tu be more appropriate?
Thanks for all of your assistance.
–FCOD
Tu would definitely be more appropiate.
Ok. Did I do this correctly?
Bon anniversaire, Shane! Nous ne parlons pas bien français, mais nous faisons de notre mieux! Nous espérons que tu passeras une splendide journée et que tu recevras un bon nombre de cartes. Nous te gardons dans nos prières.
Nous espérons que tu t’amuseras avec ces autocollants de Shrek et de Cars.
–FCOD
That is just not sounding right to me. I think it would be better as ‘Nous ne parlons pas bien le francais’ Can’t say why but to me it sounds wrong the way you have it.
Why not say ‘beaucoup de cartes’?
Do you mean that to be present? Otherwise it would be ‘Nous te garderons’ for ‘we will keep you’.