# Cet article n'est qu'un trompe-l'oeil



## Schrodinger's_Cat

Comment traduire en italien (how to translate into Italian):

"Cet article n'est qu'un trompe-l'oeil."


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## underhouse

Hi BenVitale,

I am not quite sure I understand the French expression:
are you referring to those articles supermarkets sell short in order to attract customers?
If yes, I would translate:

_Questo articolo è solo uno specchietto per le allodole._


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## Schrodinger's_Cat

Un trompe-l'oeil est un faux-semblant, une illusion, quelque chose qui donne l’illusion de la réalité.

Et aussi, le trompe-l'oeil est un genre artistique :

http://ophtasurf.free.fr/illusions/trompeloeil.htm

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trompe-l'%C5%93il


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## Nanon

C'est peut-être aussi un article factice qu'on expose dans les vitrines à la place du vrai. Par exemple, un flacon de parfum rempli d'eau colorée, ou de faux bijoux. 
On pourrait trouver ce genre de petite note à côté de l'article exposé, pour dissuader les voleurs. Mais je ne sais pas si c'est le contexte.


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## Schrodinger's_Cat

Nanon said:


> C'est peut-être aussi un article factice qu'on expose dans les vitrines à la place du vrai. Par exemple, un flacon de parfum rempli d'eau colorée, ou de faux bijoux.
> On pourrait trouver ce genre de petite note à côté de l'article exposé, pour dissuader les voleurs. Mais je ne sais pas si c'est le contexte.


 

C' est exactement dans ce contexte-lá. Alors comment traduirez-vous en italien cette phrase?


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## Nanon

Malheureusement, je ne parle pas italien... je passe le relais !
Dans le pire des cas, est-ce qu'en passant par l'anglais... ?
Bon courage !


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## Schrodinger's_Cat

Nanon said:


> Malheureusement, je ne parle pas italien... je passe le relais !
> Dans le pire des cas, est-ce qu'en passant par l'anglais... ?
> Bon courage !


 
Merci!

En anglais, "trompe-l' oeil" veut dire : to fool the eye.


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## Ciliegina

Je pense qu'en italien nous n'avons pas une expression fixe pour designer cet objet dont vous parlez. 

Je le traduirais avec *copia non in vendita*, mais il dépend aussi de l'article en question. Est-ce que tu peux donner un peu plus de contexte?

(Sorry for my bad French...)


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## Schrodinger's_Cat

Ciliegina said:


> Je pense qu'en italien nous n'avons pas une expression fixe pour designer cet objet dont vous parlez.
> 
> Je le traduirais avec *copia non in vendita*, mais il dépend aussi de l'article en question. Est-ce que tu peux donner un peu plus de contexte?
> 
> (Sorry for my bad French...)


 
Yes, it is a "copia non in vendita", it is a product you want to sell, and it could look better than the real thing ... there's an element of deception at play here. It could also be a speech, a proposal that you want to promote.


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## Ciliegina

Ben, je pense que nous ne parlons pas de la meme chose. 



Nanon said:


> C'est peut-être aussi un article factice qu'on expose dans les vitrines à la place du vrai. Par exemple, un flacon de parfum rempli d'eau colorée, ou de faux bijoux.
> On pourrait trouver ce genre de petite note à côté de l'article exposé, pour dissuader les voleurs. Mais je ne sais pas si c'est le contexte.



*Copia non in vendita* va bien pour l'idée expliqueée par Nanon. Il s'agit d'un objet exposé dans la vitrine, mais qui n'est pas en vente. 



> Yes, it is a "copia non in vendita", it is a product you want to sell, and it could look better than the real thing ... there's an element of deception at play here. It could also be a speech, a proposal that you want to promote.



Ici tu te réfères à quelque chose qui pourrait tromper le client. Donc je pense que la traduction que t'avait proposée Underhouse est ce que tu est en train de chercher: *specchietto per le allodole.

*J'espère avoir bien expliqué la différence


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## Schrodinger's_Cat

Ciao Ciliegina,

Je faisais allusion aux discours politiques qui représent un bon exemple de "trompe-l'oeil"

Et, "specchietto per le allodole" é "mirroir aux allouettes" in francese.


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## Ciliegina

Je pense qu'on pourrait utiliser *specchietto per le allodole *dans ce sens aussi.


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## Ciliegina

Qu'est-ce que tu pense de *pubblicità ingannevole?*

Mais cette expression ne se réfère pas à l'objet (ou au discours politique, etc.) en soi-meme, mais à la façon dont on le présente, ou promeut, qui est trompeuse.


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## berndf

BenVitale said:


> Merci!
> 
> En anglais, "trompe-l' oeil" veut dire : to fool the eye.


 
But in you sentence it is a noun meaning "mock-up" ("This item is only a mock-up."). German is "Attrappe" ("Dieser Artikel ist nur eine Attrappe."). For someone who speaks better Italian than I do, these two translations might be useful to find the appropriate Italian word (maybe "modello dimostrativo"?).


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## Schrodinger's_Cat

In English you could also say *"trick the eye"*

I found that in German it is *"täusche das Auge"*

And in Italian it is *"inganna l'occhio"*


En politique, les politiciens font souvent des démarches et discours en trompe-l'oeil.

Ceci est aussi dans les affaires commerciales.

Dans les Arts:

le trompe-l'oeil est une représentation destinée à donner l'illusion de la réalité. Le trompe-l'œil naît quand la volonté de « tromper » l'emporte sur l'intention esthétique et incite l'artiste à utiliser tous les artifices techniques possibles.


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## berndf

You are trying to translate too literally. You have acknowledged Nanon's surmise of context which is that of a "mock-up" and that is how you would normally understand it in this French sentence.


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## Ciliegina

I agree with berndf. I explained to you, Ben, that in Italian we express this concept in a different way. 

The artistic genre that in French is called trompe-l'oeil, in Italian is called trompe-l'oeil too. But this expression, in my opinion, doesn't fit to translate your sentence. It would sound quite strange, I think that you wouldn't be understood.

What about the options that I suggested in my previous posts? Which one is closer to what you're looking for?


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## berndf

Ciliegina, my translation "modello dimostrativo" I quoted above is from the WR English->Italian dictionary for "mock-up". When I look at the translations offered for "Attrappe" in the German->Italian dictionary on the corriere.it site, I find "imitazione" (not so good, because too general, I think) or "campione fittizio". I am quite sure about the English and German translations, so those expressions should be candidates. Do you think any one of them would be fitting? Among your translation attempts, "copia non in vendita" sounds fine to me, too but my Italian isn't good enough to be sure.


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## Ciliegina

Hi berndf!
Yes, I think that "modello dimostrativo" could be the right translation, but it depends on the object too... and I haven't understood to what kind of product Ben is referring.

But "modello dimostrativo", as "copia non in vendita", for example, doesn't contain the nuance of deception that Ben was trying to explain.

I can't find a translation that mixes these two concepts.

(Sorry for my mistakes.)


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## berndf

Ciliegina said:


> But "modello dimostrativo", as "copia non in vendita", for example, doesn't contain the nuance of deception that Ben was trying to explain.


 
As I tried to explain before, I think Ben is misunderstanding the French sentence. In this use of "trompe-l'oeil" there is no element of deception. You might find this sentence e.g. in a shop to discourage potential thieves.


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## Nanon

berndf said:


> You are trying to translate too literally. You have acknowledged Nanon's surmise of context which is that of a "mock-up" and that is how you would normally understand it in this French sentence.



It was nothing else than a wild guess. I can understand the original sentence either as I explained above or as an "improved" copy of something. Is "ne... que" / "only" used in a restrictive (in that case my first proposal would work) or _despective _meaning? In the absence of a context, the sentence can mean both things. 

A "miroir aux alouettes" can be ironical enough in some contexts, but let's wait for more information about the "article" we are talking about. "Un leurre" would probably be too offensive in commercial contexts (again, article?).

NB - I can't speak or write Italian and this is why I won't propose any translation, but based on my knowledge of three other Romance languages, I can read it fairly well. End of intermission


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## Schrodinger's_Cat

In "trompe-l'oeil" there's an element of deception. Please check your dictionaries.

see http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trompe-l'œil


http://www.trompeloeilsociety.com/


But, in politics, in public relations and in business, there's another word used to describe this type of deception. It is the "spin"

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_(public_relations)


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## berndf

BenVitale said:


> In "trompe-l'oeil" there's an element of deception. Please check your dictionaries.


 
In general: Yes.
In the usage context of post #4: No.
Those are simply two different meanings of the same word which are disambiguated by context.

I accept Nanon's point that unless you know the full context you can never be sure. But I still think it was no accident that Nanon as a native speaker immediately guessed this meaning as this particular sentence sounds much more natural when trompe-l'oeil used in this sense.


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## Ciliegina

I think you can't look for a perfect correspondence between French and Italian. That's what I was trying to explain.


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## Nanon

What induced me to propose the context of "display in shops" was the use of the word "article", more than "trompe-l'oeil".

And of course, etymologically speaking, there _is_ an element of deception: "tromper"! That doesn't mean you need to take it literally...


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