I’m involved with a group that’s putting on a themed dinner event in a couple months, and the theme this time around is French. What we’re looking for right now is French food-service signage - cafeteria-type stuff like “Kitchen staff only” “Please bus your table” “No smoking” “Today’s special is ___” and so forth. If we can spread this to things like “Employees must wash hands before returning to work” so much the better.
I realize I could go to Babelfish and translate phrases and words literally, but with every language, there are idioms and grammatic structure to wrestle with. Rather than write up something nonsensical, I turn to the collective genius of SDMB.
As one example of a screwed-up idiom I’ve already found, “Please bus your table” Babelfishes to “Veuillez transporter votre table,” which translates back to English as “Please transport your table.” Perhaps I should say it babble-fishes? We don’t want our guests carrying tables around - just to take their tray over to the window.
If anyone has listings of this kind of wording, or can aim me at websites of such stuff, (that I can read!) I’d be quite happy.
I glean from your context that ‘bus your table’ means ‘clear your table’ - am I right? - I’ve heard Americans mention it a few times, but I think it may not be in common use outside the USA.
So you’re right - literal translation is going to leave you with oeuf on your visage.
My French is a little shaky, but
‘No smoking’ is “Ne pas fumer” or ‘Defense de fumer’
(this sign translates (I think) as ‘No smoking or spitting’)
gotpasswords, I wasn’t able to find any such sites with a quick search, but if you’d like to write up some signs in English, and e-mail them to me, I’ll translate them for you, trying to follow the conventions in use in cafeterias I frequent (which have french signage).
(Within reason, of course. If you’ve got 900 different phrases, maybe you should hire a translator).
Btw, I usally see ‘Défense de fumer’ for ‘No smoking’.
“Bus” isn’t in common use in my region, in English. A Francophone might understand “Veuillez débarrasser la table” for “Please clear the table”.
“Les employé(e)s doivent laver les mains” is “Employees must wash hands.” Tack on “avant de retourner au travail” for “Before returning to work.”
If you take me up on my offer, you’d essentially be getting French as it’s used on public signage in mid-eastern Canada. As best I can do…
I’d be surprised to find ‘Prière’ used on a sign like that, at least around here. ‘Veulliez’ with ‘la’ is less pretty, but closer to what I’m used to seeing. Yours is closer to a literal “Please bus your table”, though. Mine conveys the same message, and is in the sort of rigid formal language I’d expect on a placard in a cafeteria. IMHO, of course.
We’ve got at leat one semi-pro translator who deos English and French on the boards… maybe he’ll be by.
I just ran across a hand-written sign in one of the breakrooms here that looks amusing - Someone described the coffee as “jus de chaussette” which Babelfish translates as “watery coffee” but taken individually, would be juice of sock. Blech.
Y’all must get your coffee service from the same outfit we do, though sometimes I suspect it’s really “jus de culottes”.
Brings to mind an old Peanuts cartoon, something like this: Lucy tells Linus to go get her some hot chocolate; he does. She sips. Bleah! she says. You made it too weak! This tastes like hot water with a brown crayon dipped in it! Linus says Oh? How do YOU make hot chocolate?
