# Ne serait-ce que



## arvind

*Moderator note:*  multiple threads merged to create this one

Bonjour tout le monde,

Est-ce que quelqu'un peut m'expliquer que veut dire l'expression "ne serait-ce que ..."?

Merci
Arvind


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## carolineR

It's a rather common phrase whose meaning is close to "were it only/ even if it was just"
e.g.
1.Je voudrais pouvoir acheter une oeuvre de Picasso, une aquarelle par exemple, ou une petite toile. Une oeuvre signée, ne serait-ce qu'un dessin, me comblerait.
Il  doit vraiment se refaire une santé :  il faut absolument qu'il parte en vacances : ne serait-ce que 10 jours, mais il a besoin de repos.

The same idea can be expressed more formally with a subjunctive: fût-ce 1. ...Une oeuvre signée, fût-ce un dessin, me comblerait.
2. ... fût-ce 10 jours, mais il a besoin de repos.


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## arvind

carolineR said:
			
		

> It's a rather common phrase whose meaning is close to "were it only/ even if it was just"



Merci Caroline, je vais essayer de m'en servir de cette expression.

Arvind


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## montagnebleue

Bonjour,
Aider moi svp à traduire en Anglais l'expression "_ne serait-ce que_" comme par exemple dans la phrase "je suis prêt à l'aider _ne serait-ce que_ par amour pour lui." 

Merci d'avance!


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## Iznogoud

"I would be willing to help him, if only out of love for him."


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## konungursvia

It means something like "even if only to"...


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## montagnebleue

Merci pour toutes les contributions mais je suis encore perplexe car on dirait que personne n'est vraiment sûr de ce qu'il ou elle a proposé comme traduction la mieux adaptée pour "ne serait-ce que".

Donc je reste toujours à votre aimable écoute.


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## Loic

Personellement je vote sans hésitation pour la réponse de Iznogoud #2.
J'ai récemment eu ceci dans une traduction :_N'eût-ce été que pour cette réalité, elle voulait bien accepter... :"If only for this "reality", she was willing to accept...."_


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## roland098

Yes, I agree Iznogoud's translation sounds good, although I'd translate the first part as< 
I am ready (or willing or prepared) to help him..


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## montagnebleue

Merci donc à tous et je vais choisir la suggestion de Iznogoud !


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## resatfuat

bonsoir 

qu'est-ce que veut dire "ne serait-ce que"


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## RuK

if only, usually. 
Ce serait mieux d'avoir un peu de contèxte, ne serait-ce qu'une phrase..
It would be better to have a little context, if only a sentence...


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## resatfuat

merci 
je crois que ce sera suffi.


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## Mjollnir

*grin*  Wouldn't that be 'sera suffisant'?


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## resatfuat

oui pourquoi pas


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## chiclette

how to translate into english "*ne serait-ce que pour*...."


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## shine

in what context?


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## chiclette

general context. 
ex : "*ne serait-ce que pour* voir l'effet que ca fait"


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## Kelly B

You might enjoy reading the previous threads on the subject:

ne serait-ce que parce qu'il était né allemand
Ne vois-tu pas ne serait-ce qu'une petite différence ?


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## serenity682

Hello, 

I'd like to say that authoritarian rulers are often forced to liberalize economy "ne serait-ce que pour leur propre enrichissement"
I really don't know how to translate that. "XXXXX only for their own enrichment"?

Thank you for your help!


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## cropje_jnr

..., *be it* only for their own profit/to make themselves rich.

Have a look here for no doubt other ideas.


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## serenity682

Ok that much better! Thank you (for the second time!)


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## david314

Maybe: _ Were it only just that/for ..._


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## hotjava

I have difficulty translating the phrase "ne serait-ce que"
For example,

1. _J'ai besoin de te voir, ne serait-ce que pour te dire adieu_
_I need to see you again, if only to say goodbye._

2. _J'ai attendu toutes les années pour avoir ne serait-ce qu'une lettre_
_I have waited all these years, hoping to have, if only one letter (from you)._

Are my translations correct? 

A propos, y a-t-il une autre expression qui peut remplacer "ne serait-ce que".  Il me semble c'est une expression très littèraire.  Alors, comment dit-on cela oralement?


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## envie de voyager

This is a quote from above:



carolineR said:


> It's a rather common phrase whose meaning is close to "were it only/ even if it was just"


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## hotjava

If so, can _"ne serait-ce que" _ be replaced by the more informal phrase  _"ne ... plus que"_ ? But I am still not sure how to substitute _"ne  plus ...que"_ into the 2 example sentences above. Maybe:

_J'ai besoin de te voir, pour ne te dire plus qu'adieu

_ _J'ai attendu tout__es les années pour n'avoir plus qu'une lettre_


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## Dr. Baha'i

I think "if only" serves very well in these two examples.


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## Jon in FL

I'm having trouble understanding *ne serait-ce qu'un dixième de crise *in this sentence:

Il m'a dit que lui, il n'avait pas intéret à faire ne serait-ce qu'un dixième de crise d'adolescence parce que son père aurait tout de suite su comment la calmer.

To me, I understand:  He told me that to him, he had no interest _____________ because his father would have immediately known how to calm it.

Any ideas?


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## Quaeitur

He told me that he'd better not have even a tenth of an adolescence crisis because his father ... 

Often, _ne pas avoir intérêt à faire quelque chose_ means that *one better not do something

*Edited to add: I have difficulties finding a standard translation for ne serait-ce que. I have googled the expression, and depending on the verbs used, and the construction of the sentence, the meaning keeps changing... Maybe it is a good discussion for the French only forum


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## david314

In the most recent case, I am inclined to translate as:_ ... *be it only* a 1/10_


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## david314

I recently saw the following translation:  _*ne serait-ce qu*'un jour / *even if only for* a day_


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## jet_leader1

Moderateur: Veuillez supprimer le fils dernier par moi. Je n'ai rendu compte que maintenant que les traits d'unions sont à peine visibles.
-------------------------------
Les excellents fils derniers ont prouvé que « *ne serait-ce que* » faut vouloir dire "if only" ou "were*-*it only." Par contre, je voudrais déduire ces le sens mot à mot en mettant (excessivement) l'accent sur le trait d'union.

Je pense que : « *ne serait**-**ce que* » =  serait*-*ce seulement = would it*-*be only.

Mais "would it*-*be only" diffère de "were*-*it only": c'est le conditionel présent contre l'imparfait ?  

Merci beaucoup de votre aide.


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## jann

It's rather difficult to understand your question, but let me try to answer anyway. 

The French tense in _ne serait-ce que_ is the conditional.  (Remember, the imparfait conjugation would have to be _était_.)

The English tense in "were it only" is actually the past subjunctive, and "be it only" is the present subjunctive.

As you realize, for contexts where _ne serait-ce_ is something you'd say in French, we don't say "would it only be" using the English conditional. Tense/mode usage is not always directly equivalent between French and English; it's not helpful to try to impose a one-to-one correspondence.  

I don't really understand why you want to insist on the hyphen.  It's there in French because we must always connect the verb with its subject using a hyphen when we have inversion :  _ce serait --> serait-ce_ // _ce ne serait que --> ne serait-ce que._ The hyphen carries no meaning at all in French.  And I'm afraid I don't understand what special meaning you want to convey by hyphenating "were-it" and "it-be" in English.


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## jet_leader1

Thank you very much for your response, jann, once again! I will clarify my question here. Please forgive me for the opacity. 

I understand that « *ne serait-ce que *» is in the conditionnel présent in French. However, I am trying to understand how a word-by-word analysis « *ne serait-ce que* » yields "if only" or "were it only"?

If I translate the conditionnel présent directly, I will get: « *ne serait-ce que* » = would it be only. There are no French equivalents for "if" here, so do you get "if only" by rewriting "were it only" then?

On the other hand, if I had wanted "were it only", I would have needed to start with (as you kindly explained): « *n'était-ce que ». 
*
Lastly, I understand that it may be impossible to correspond one-to-one between English and French, but *était* looks to be the straightforward choice?


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## lucas-sp

"Word for word" translating the English "were it only" into French would give you something like "ne fût-ce que." "C'était" is "it was," not "it were."

It doesn't help to do this outside of context, I think. Basically, the "ne... que" gives you the "even / only," and the _​inverted __conditional itself _provides the "if." The phrase "ne serait-ce que" is a form of "si ce ne serait que." Just like in English, the inversion can take the place of an "if." (Compare "If I were rich..." and "Were I rich...")


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## jet_leader1

Thank you for your response, lucas-sp. I understand the derivation of "only" now.

However, I'm still confused as to the inverted conditional. Directly, « *ne serait-ce que* » = "would it be only" because « serait » is in the conditionnel présent. So why is "were it only" instead offered as the translation (along with "if only") on many other threads here on Wordreference? Shouldn't "Would it be only" be the correct translation?

Also, shouldn't  « *n'était-ce que » = *"were it only" also? « *n'était-ce que » = *« *si ce n'était que » = if it WERE only (since it's grammatically wrong to say "if it was only")*. Of course, « *ne fût-ce que* » also means this but it's in the passé simple.


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## lucas-sp

Actually, "fût" is in the past subjunctive, not the passé simple. The phrase "if it were" is the English subjunctive.

"N'était-ce que" means "this was only / this was nothing but." The inversion there is for emphasis, and it might sound archaic. It doesn't have the force of a conditional or a subjunctive. It's actually talking about something that did exist, as in a sentence like:





> Évidemment, ce n'était pas avec ces ressources minimes qu'on pouvait obtenir un crédit suffisant pour la liquidation de la dette publique. Aussi _n'était-ce que_ le premier rouage du grand édifice qu'on appela « le Système. » (Dictionnaire de l'économie politique, C. Coquelin)


To be honest, I'm getting rather confused. Are you A) claiming that word-for-word translations are more correct than actual translations or B) claiming that "would it be only" is a functional English phrase meaning "were it only"?


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## jann

jet_leader1 said:


> However, I am trying to understand how a word-by-word analysis « *ne serait-ce que* » yields "if only" or "were it only"?


Quite simply, it doesn't.   A word-by-word analysis is not helpful here.

This structure is just idiomatic enough that an English-speaker would be unlikely to be able to synthesize it entirely from scratch if he wanted to express the idea "were it only" French and didn't know the expression.   It's not to say he couldn't find another perfectly natural way to convey the idea he needed to express, but it wouldn't use this structure.

However, given the French expression, the English-speaker could perhaps deduce its general sense from context.  And then, since he's a native speaker, he can probably think of at least 2 different ways to express that sentiment in English (such as _were it only_ and _if only__,_ plus several other mentioned higher in this thread).  Once again, this deduction would not come from word-by-word analysis, and certainly the mental search for several different English synonyms means that he could end up with structures and expressions that are totally distinct from the French one, even though they convey a similar idea.  

So if not via word-by-word analysis, how does our English-speaker figure out the meaning?  He recognizes the _ne...que_ as a restrictive, and starts with a literal translation as "would it only be."  He recognizes that one use of the conditional is to talk about unreal or hypothetical situations.  So he looks for something that could be hypothetical.  Then he asks himself how we'd really say that in English.  He might also recall a few instances (example) where he's seen the French conditional used to replace {si + imperfect}.

Let's consider just one example from higher in this thread:

_Ce serait mieux d'avoir un peu de contèxte, ne serait-ce qu'une phrase_
Literally: It would be better to have a little context, "would it only be" one sentence.  

We're speculating about the nature of the hypothetical context that has not yet been provided.  How to express that idea naturally in English?  Something like "It would be better to have a little context, even just a sentence," or "... if only a single sentence."  Or, in very wordy fashion: "... even if the context were only a single sentence."  You can mentally reorganize the hypothetical: "If we were to have (even) just one sentence for context, that would be better."  Basically you're just turning the idea over and around in your head to see how its parts fit together and to ask yourself what different ways you can express them.  This particular example is perhaps not one where "...were it only just 1 sentence" will suggest itself to you, because it sounds a bit overdone in such a simple statement.  But if the example you were considering was a more literary/complex sentence, you might well think of "were it only" as one possible option.


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## jet_leader1

Thank you very much, lucas-sp and jann!

@lucas-sp: My apologies for the confusion, but neither. I was asking only how « *ne serait-ce que* » = "would it be only"   could be translated to  "were it only." In other words, I had trouble how the conditional, from the literal translation in green, yielded the English translation with the imperfect past tense.


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## BAlfson

"Were" is the subjunctive, not the imperfect past, tense.

Cheers - Bob


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## eternica

Just want to ask: how do you pronounce "ne serait-ce que"? Is it just sə.ʁɛ.skə?


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## Kelly B

You can listen to it here, although I think the synthesizer separates _ce que_ to an unnatural degree be sure to include the hyphen - it sounds better.


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