# Tous les cafés se sont éteints



## sanjana_2006

Is it possible to translate 
"
Tous les cafes se sont eteints"
      as
All the coffeehouses lighted off.


----------



## balaam

bien que la phrase soit grammaticalement correcte, elle n'est pas utilisable.
d'abord parce que café se réfère aussi bien à la boisson qu'au débit de boisson (où l'on vend souvent plus de bière que de café).
ensuite parce que l'on "éteint" ce qui s'allume (une lumière, une lampe, un appareil,). 
un café étant un lieu et non un engin électrique, il ne s'éteint pas. un français serait surpris de cette formulation et -en y réfléchissant- penserait que c'est l'enseigne lumineuse du café qui s'éteint.


----------



## sanjana_2006

c'est un extrait d'un poeme
alors comment on va traduire cela en anglais

moi j'ai traduit comme
all the coffee bars lighted out


est-ce que c'est correcte?


----------



## Kat LaQ

Hi sanjana_2006, 
From an AE point of you, we don't say "lighted _off_".  We say lighted or lit, depending on the context.

We could say the the cafes were _lit up_ (usually by something), _were glowing, were softly lit, were brightly lit..._ 

Can you perhaps provide a few more lines of the poem??


----------



## Kat LaQ

Lighted _out_ is not correct, either.  Perhaps you are looking for _up._


----------



## sanjana_2006

Hi I am finally  that someone replied to my post.It's a french poem which I have been trying to translate in English.


In French it says 
Tous les cafes se sont eteints
which I translates as 
All the coffee houses were lighted out


I guess "eteints "here means light went out or something.I don't know which word to use exactly in English.


----------



## Kat LaQ

Well, I was hoping you would provide a few more lines of the poem, as the context would really help. 2nd request  

Poetically, I might say:
The cafes were all dark (moody, very late at night)
or
All the cafes went dark (maybe there was a blackout)
or 
The lights of the cafes were fading (image of closing time)

Pedestrian-ly I might say:
The lights were out in all the cafes
or 
The lights were off in all the cafes

you can use turn off the lights, too, but that usually suggests a person to turn them off, and I don't see one in your poem.

I am not an expert on the nuances of s'eteindre, especially used in a poem, but the above are all grammatically correct, at least.

Does that help?


----------



## Cath.S.

The real meaning of the French sentence is _the lights went off / were turned of in all the cafes / coffeehouses._

It is a sudden action, the poem does not merely say that the cafes were not lighted. They were lighted, then suddenly the lights disappeared.


----------



## sanjana_2006

Hi There,
        Thanks again for your reply.

The title of the poem is "Fenetre"which means window.It seems that the narrator is at a window and watching.(that's what I am thinking...I am not sure)

So in this context how will it be translated-------in the narrator's point of view.


----------



## Kat LaQ

Thanks, eguele.  That clears it up for me, and for the poster, too, I hope.


----------



## sanjana_2006

yes thanks egueule.It helped me great deal.


----------



## rsweet

I think this is a very beautiful poetic image. I'd translate it into English as "all the cafes are dark."


----------



## Sanda

rsweet said:
			
		

> I think this is a very beautiful poetic image. I'd translate it into English as "all the cafes are dark."



"went" dark?


----------



## balaam

sandra +1

as said before, it's a weird way to say café are all close. it may be colloquial in some place but i never heard it. if emphase is on the ligth that disappear and not so on the openness of the coffeeshop, "Went Dark" is the better translation I can imagine.


----------



## fruey

If the cafés suddenly all went dark, and because this is from a poem, you'd probably need a couple of lines before/after in order to come up with the most fitting phrase.

You could perhaps end up needing "the life in all the cafés suddenly died" or something like that, because s'éteindre can mean "to die" esp. in poetry, right?


----------



## sanjana_2006

well these are the lines.........

Tous les cafes se sont eteints.
un bec e gaz,place en place,
Bave sur le trottoir mouille.



I am sending the lines so that one can have a gist of the poem


----------



## rsweet

sanjana_2006 said:
			
		

> well these are the lines.........
> 
> Tous les cafes se sont eteints.
> un bec e gaz,place en place,
> Bave sur le trottoir mouille.
> 
> 
> 
> I am sending the lines so that one can have a gist of the poem



What an interesting picture! I missed the reflexive verb before , so here's another try at an English translation:

All the cafes have gone dark
a finger of light, from place to place,
drools onto the wet sidewalk


----------



## Cath.S.

> a finger of light,


Hi Rsweet, it's a very poetic translation but
_bec de gaz_ only means_ gas street-lamp_. It is not poetic vocabulary, just ordinary French - well, totaly old-fashioned of course since streets have not been gas-lit for many decades now..


----------



## rsweet

egueule said:
			
		

> _bec de gaz_ only means_ gas street-lamp_. It is not poetic vocabulary, just ordinary French - well, totaly old-fashioned of course since streets have not been gas-lit for many decades now..



Thank you, egeule! I looked up gaslamp, which was _lampe à gaz_, so I went off on this great "beak" image. I love poetry, so maybe I go there too easily.  Glad you set me straight.


----------



## LV4-26

Is that the beginning of the poem?
Normally, as egueule noted, _tous les cafés se sont éteints_ means that the lights went out all of a sudden. That's because of the use of the active  _passé composé.

_Now when I read the two other verses, I start wondering. I mean it could be taken to mean
_Tous les cafés se sont éteints_, at some point in time, don't know which, I wasn't there to see when it happened. But now I'm here I can see there's no more light in them.

Well, it's just an impression due to the other verses which seem to describe the state of the overall scenery rather than actions. That's why I asked if there was something before the first line.


----------



## balaam

sheer curiosity.

is this personal poetry or some french authir i don't know of ?


----------



## Cath.S.

Salut Jean-Mi,
il se peut tout à fait que tu aies raison et que la disparition des lumières ait eu lieu à un moment indéterminé, donc tu suggérerais une traduction du genre :
_all the cafes have gone dark ?_


----------



## polaire

Kat LaQ said:
			
		

> Well, I was hoping you would provide a few more lines of the poem, as the context would really help. 2nd request
> 
> Poetically, I might say:
> The cafes were all dark (moody, very late at night)
> or
> * All the cafes went dark (maybe there was a blackout)
> or
> The lights of the cafes were fading (image of closing time)*
> 
> Pedestrian-ly I might say:
> The lights were out in all the cafes
> or
> The lights were off in all the cafes
> 
> you can use turn off the lights, too, but that usually suggests a person to turn them off, and I don't see one in your poem.
> 
> I am not an expert on the nuances of s'eteindre, especially used in a poem, but the above are all grammatically correct, at least.
> 
> Does that help?



The highlighted versions make the most sense to me.


----------



## Cath.S.

*



The lights of the cafes were fading (image of closing time)

Click to expand...

*The author would have used the imperfect or the present, not the passé composé if that's what he had meant.


----------



## LV4-26

egueule said:
			
		

> Salut Jean-Mi,
> il se peut tout à fait que tu aies raison et que la disparition des lumières ait eu lieu à un moment indéterminé, donc tu suggérerais une traduction du genre :
> _all the cafes have gone dark ?_


Quelque chose comme ça, oui.
Ou bien
_In the cafés, all the lights are now out..._


----------



## sanjana_2006

*Thanks for all the input in this translation*!


----------



## LV4-26

Correction : j'ai posté un peu vite hier soir car j'étais sur le point de me coucher. En fait, _all the cafés have gone dark_ me semble plus approprié que ce que j'ai proposé (après, sanjana, qui est aborilingue, élaborera une version finale qui lui semble "sonner" parfaitement anglais).


----------



## sanjana_2006

well  I sincerely think 
*All The cafes went dark* 
is a better option

But of course I am not saying that your's is wrong.


----------



## Cath.S.

sanjana_2006 said:
			
		

> well I sincerely think
> *All The cafes went dark*
> is a better option
> 
> But of course I am not saying that your's is wrong.


Hi Sanjana, you're not saying that Jean-Michel's solution is wrong, fair enough, I am now certain that yours is, as the poet - will s/he remain anonymous?, btw? - would have, in fact used the passé simple if s/he's meant to say all the cafes went dark.

It would seem much more obvious if the verses read
_tous les cafés se sont éteints_
_les uns après les autres,_
which is very grammatical event though obviously that does not make it good peotry. 

all the cafes have gone dark
one after the other

The reason I insist is that I misled you, and was misled myself until Jean-Michel showed me the (gas-)light.


----------



## Jennifer_fly

VOILA......You want the poet's name....here you go


Fenetre By Georges Chenneviere.

Hope you are happy my friend
my aim is to be happy and keep All Happy


----------



## Cath.S.

Jennifer_fly said:
			
		

> VOILA......You want the poet's name....here you go
> 
> 
> Fenetre By Georges Chenneviere.
> 
> Hope you are happy my friend
> my aim is to be happy and keep All Happy


Merci.
Georges Chennevière, Léon Debille de son vrai nom.


----------

