Super easy (I hope): Need help translating sentence to French

Factual Questions
1

Hey, Dopers! Well, this is certainly a “factual question” if not an interesting one. Could someone assist me by translating the following into Parisian French?

“Please give this message to your guest Jane Smith (wife of John Doe). Thank you for your assistance.”

I am sending an message to my sister via e-mail to the Paris hotel she is staying at. (I’m supposed to pick her up at the airport, but she didn’t leave me the flight information.) The message itself will be directed to my sister in English, but I would like to put the forwarding request in French rather than making the assumption the hotel clerks speak English.

Thanks for the help!

2

Go to Google, and click on “Language Tools”. Type your message in the “Translate Text” box, and change the default “Spanish to English” to be “English to French”. Press the “Translate” button, and it gives you this:

Veuillez donner ce message à votre invité Jane Smith (épouse de daine de John). Merci de votre aide.

For more fun, put that text back in the first box, and tell Google to trranslate it back to English:

Please give this message to your guest Jane Smith (wife of floor of John). Thank you for your assistance.

That was actually a lot more accurate than I expected! I suppose an almost-perfect translation might be:

Veuillez donner ce message à votre invité Jane Smith (épouse de John Doe). Merci de votre aide.

3

Looking at it again, I see another possible problem. If a word totally stumps Google, it leaves it untranslated. I have no idea whether this might have happened to the word “message”, or whether perhaps “message” means the same thing in both French and English.

4

Not terribly helpful I’m sure, but here’s my half-remembered O-Level French answer. Critique welcomed from a proper French speaker.

S’il vous plaît, donnez cette message à votre invité Jane Smith (l’épouse de John Smith). Merci pour vous m’aider.

(“Message” is the same in English and French, though I’m wondering if “ces mots” [these words] is more colloquial?)

5

“message” is also correct in French, it’s just pronounced differently (something like “massage” but with the first syllable pronounced a lot like “may”)

6

Also not a native speaker, but I suspect for a guest at an hotel (as opposed to a private guest) hôte would be more pertinent. My choice would be

S.v.p. transmettez le message suivant à votre hôte Mme Jane Smith (épouse de M John Doe). Merci pour votre aide.

7

Thanks for the help, the message has been sent. A mod can close this unless people want to discuss the nuances of French. :slight_smile:

8

One nuance to discuss: is it true that in a Parisian hotel, you can pretty much guarantee that a significant proportion of the desk staff (and almost always the concierge) have a good command of English? Perhaps this varies by the swankiness of the hotel?

9

The hotels where I’ve stayed in Paris were anything but swanky and the guys at the desks spoke English a lot better than I speak French. It’s possible that they speak “English for desk clerks at hotels,” though… they’ll be able to tell you where your room is and hand you a map, but may not be able to discuss the finer points of international politics (which would be a faux pas anyway).

10

I think it likely the desk clerks at this mid-price Parisian boutique hotel do speak English, but I thought it was a bit presumptuous to make that assumption in an e-mail directed to them. The message to my sister (“Hey! Send me your flight arrival information!”) was in English.