# Il devait y avoir



## XQter4evR

Pourriez-vous m'aidez à traduire la phrase suivante ? " il devait y avoir une fête mais il n'y avait pas moyen de savoir ce qu'il avait fait du gâteau."

J'ai traduit par : There must have been a party but it was impossible to know what he had done with the cake. Est-ce correcte ? Merci par avance.


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## Blancheneige

La phrase française est confuse, avec ses trois "il" ne représentant pas le même sujet...("il devait" suivi de "il n'y avait pas moyen" et "ce qu'il avait fait").  
Traduction proposée:
"A party was supposed to take place, but there was no way to know where he had put the cake"


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## Gil

My try:
There was going to be a party....


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## Moon Palace

There was to be a party... ?


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## Argyll

There was to be, ou there was to have been; impossible dans le fragment de contexte fourni de deviner si le projet a survécu à la disparition de la sucrerie qui semblait devoir en être le clou.


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## paulio

XQter, you're version is very good. A couple of small suggestions to make it sound a bit more natural:
There must have been a party but *there was no way of knowing* what he had done with the cake.


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## sisina

I'd say "There was supposed to be a party, but there was no way to know what he had done with the cake." The verb tenses don't seem to agree, though. "There was supposed to have been a party" would make more sense to me.


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## Argyll

> There must have been a party


That does not mean the same as the original French sentence. It means that a party most probably took place - as in 'I can see there are empty beer cans all over the place' - while the French means there had been plans for a party... though what happened after the cake vanished is unclear.


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## Moon Palace

I fully agree with ARgyll, I was just about to post a similar answer, but you just outran me


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## Gil

Argyll said:


> That does not mean the same as the original French sentence. It means that a party most probably took place - as in 'I can see there are empty beer cans all over the place' - while the French means there had been plans for a party... though what happened after the cake vanished is unclear.



D'accord.


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## paulio

How about "There ought to have been a party but there was no way of knowing what happened to the cake"? That seems to get the meaning.


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## Argyll

paulio said:


> How about "There ought to have been a party but there was no way of knowing what happened to the cake"? That seems to get the meaning.


That is definitely saying that there was in fact no party. This remains unsaid in the original French.


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## Moon Palace

paulio said:


> How about "There ought to have been a party but there was no way of knowing what happened to the cake"? That seems to get the meaning.



And it also does not point out to the person who was responsible for the disappearance of the cake. 'Il' in French cannot be omitted since it refers to somebody who has most probably been mentioned previously.


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## paulio

There ought to have been a party...



Argyll said:


> the French means there had been plans for a party... though what happened after the cake vanished is unclear.


so does this translation



Argyll said:


> That is definitely saying that there was in fact no party. This remains unsaid in the original French.


No, not necessarily. It depends on the context. e.g. There ought to have been a party and Claire organised it = the party actually happened.




Moon Palace said:


> And it also does not point out to the person who was responsible for the disappearance of the cake. 'Il' in French cannot be omitted since it refers to somebody who has most probably been mentioned previously.


Again depending on the context you probably can rearrange the senance like this in English. It is very common to use a passive in English where an active sentance would be used in French. If it clear from preceding senances who it is that has done something with the cake, it would be implied. For example, Claire and Louise went shopping on tuesday.... once the shopping was done, a party was held. We know easily from the context that once the shopping was done = once claire and louise finished doing the shopping, but there is no need to say it and the passive consruction is much more naural.


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## Argyll

paulio said:


> There ought to have been a party and Claire organised it = the party actually happened.


That's interesting. What you say about the use of the perfect after 'should/ought to' is new to me, and I have never heard it used that way in the part of England where I am a regular visitor. Maybe a regional difference?


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## Moon Palace

Again depending on the context you probably can rearrange the senance like this in English. It is very common to use a passive in English where an active sentance would be used in French. If it clear from preceding senances who it is that has done something with the cake, it would be implied. For example, Claire and Louise went shopping on tuesday.... once the shopping was done, a party was held. We know easily from the context that once the shopping was done = once claire and louise finished doing the shopping, but there is no need to say it and the passive consruction is much more naural.[/quote]

I know well that the passive voice is often more natural than in French, but what I meant is that given the other uncertainties we have in the sentence about the organisation of the party and the identity of the people who want to know what happened to the cake, I still believe the mentioning of a real person who is responsible - or so it seems - for the disappearance of the cake cannot be done away with in that context. It is the parallel with the two other doubts that entice me to try and keep 'he'. Hope it is clearer. 

As regards 'there ought to have been a party', I would also be interested in knowing a bit more, since as Argyll I had never seen it to mean what you seem to say. To me, in that sentence the party has not occurred.


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## paulio

A very common phrase when you're looking for something is:
"It ought to be here somewhere". We don't know from this whether the item being looked for is there or not - it's ambiguous. The same is true of ought in the party context, though my example with Claire wasn't particularly good use of English. What I meant is that if you use ought without further context as to whether the party happened or not, we don't know.

The reason I gave "ought" as the word is also because it is a common translation of devoir. e.g. Je dois partir demain - I ought to go/leave tomorrow.

I think this phrase is so difficult to translate partly because ought/should/must are used effectively as modals, whereas devoir at least changes tense and is therefore flexible.

To my knowledge this is standard English and not at all regional. I speak RP with a bit of London influence...


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## Moon Palace

Using 'ought to' is fine to me, it is the association of 'ought to' and the past (ought to have been) which entailed the idea that the party had not happened in the end. 
'There ought to be a rule' / 'There should be a rule' means you expect the rule to exist but have no certainty that it does. 
Yet if you go on saying 'there ought to have been a pedestrian crossing', then this implies that when something happened in the past, the pedestrian crossing didn't exist and you express disappointment about it or even regret. 
I would imagine this said after an accident for instance. 
At least this is what I have been taught.


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