# EN: reflet sur la surface



## AimeHaine

Bonjour,

Habitué à utiliser Wordreference, j'ai toujours trouvé une réponse à mes questions de traduction — merci à tous ! Mais aujourd'hui, voilà que je me trouve devant un détail sans solution. Ceci est donc ma première participation au forum — je viens donc d'avouer une utilisation exclusivement égoïste du site... merci d'être clément .

Je cherche la bonne formulation pour traduire "Il regarde son reflet sur la surface d'un vieux masque métallique." Mais dois-je utiliser "in the surface" ou "on the surface". Mickael chantait "The Man In The Mirror"  mais est-ce suffisant pour trancher ? Alors j'ai _googlé_ entre guillemets :

"reflection in the surface of" = 2 680 000 résultats
"reflection on the surface of" = 2 740 000 résultats

Ce n'est pas vraiment concluant.

Merci d'avance de m'aider dans cette quête proche de la tétrapilectomie !

AimeHaine


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## EdSteves

En anglais britannique on dirait sans doute _'reflection *in* the surface of'_, mais je n'en suis pas tout à fait sûr de ce qui se dit en anglais américain.


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## AimeHaine

Hi!

I thought it could be a difference between British English and American English. I guess nobody will come after me if I use "on" or "in"...

Thanks for your answer!

AimeHaine

[...]


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## Oddmania

Je pense qu'on dit_ reflection *in *a mirror/window/ect_ (_reflet *dans *la glace/miroir/fenêtre/..._) mais _reflection *on *a surface _


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## ellietheelephant

Oui, mais on peut dire aussi ".....reflection in the old metal mask" 

Pour traduire "sur la surface de"................."in the surface of" je crois dans ce contexte est correcte. 

"on the surface of" would mean something physically on its surface (i.e. a scratch)


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## lucas-sp

Je suis d'accord avec ellie et Ed - on dirait habituellement "*in *the surface" pour réflexions de toutes sortes. ("I'm starting with the man in the mirror," "my reflection in a pane of glass," "watched himself mirrored/reflected in an old metal mask," etc.) Ou vous pouvez éviter l'utilisation de "in/on": "He watched his reflection as it played across the surface of the old metal mask."


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## redhotchili

L'original n'est pas très fort, comme il est souvent le cas.

J'aurais écrit "Il regarde le reflet de son visage sur la surface d'un vieux masque métallique."

Et la traduction serait "He looks at the reflection of his face on the surface of an old, metal mask."

lucas-sp's formulation is nice but too flowery for my taste.


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## lucas-sp

Aw, I didn't think it was _that _flowery.

I like your translation for its economy but there are some problems there. "Looks at" isn't very strong at all; I don't know why you change "his reflection" to "the reflection of his face"; and the comma between old and metal is unnecessary. I still prefer "in" to "on" in this case, but I did some googling and the results seem pretty evenly split between reflecting on and in (although I think that a lot of the "on" responses come from phrases in which "reflect" means "consider"). So my version of your sentence would be as follows:

"He examines his reflection on/in the surface of an old metal mask."

Although I think we could be even more economical and go for concision and problem-avoidance:

"He examines his reflection in an old metal mask."


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## redhotchili

lucas--sp. Maybe not flowery but too far from the original maybe (even if it may be more aesthetically pleasing...)

I think the problem is the word "surface" so eliminating this word is a good idea. And regarder? I mean do they mean see, look, examine, glimpse??

He glimpses his reflection in an old metal mask???

He glances at??

He catches sight of his reflection in an old metal mask.


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## lucas-sp

The nuance of "regarder" definitely has to be figured out from more context. Does he stand there watching the reflection, does he look closer at it, does he merely let his eyes rest on it? Normally "regarder" is translated as watch/examine/look at while "voir" is see/glimpse/catch sight of.

And there's nothing wrong with translating into different words/syntax than the original, if it's for a good reason in that it maintains something of the sense of the original that would be lost or imperiled if a more "strict" translation took place. So if "in the surface" is going to be awkward, maybe it's good to invent a reason to use a different preposition (like I did with "playing across") so that we can keep the idea of "surface." Similarly, we could decide that we should abandon "surface" entirely to avoid the prepositional awkwardness.


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## jann

Greetings all, 

I'm concerned we're drifing rather far from the original (grammatical!) question about the preposition to use in English after "reflection" -- reflection in?  Or reflection on?

Please remember that WordReference does not permit general proofreading or rewriting of texts (rule 5).   While this discussion of sentencecraft is certainly interesting, it is not within the scope of our forums.

Please let's avoid a vocabulary or translation discussion, and refocus conversation on the specific grammatical question reflected in (on) the thread title, if there is anything left to say on the matter.

Thanks,
Jann
Moderator


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## redhotchili

As a native speaker of English, I would not use the word "surface" in this context but rather just the old metal mask.

So I would say "reflected IN an old metal mask."

If one cannot eliminate "surface", than I would say "reflected ON the surface of an old metal mask."

Have I drifted back to the original question?


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## Maître Capello

For what the opinion of a non-native is worth, I must say I fully agree with redhotchili. Although it may sound OK to natives, _reflection *in* a *surface*_ is incorrect from a strict syntactical point of view because a surface has no depth. On the other hand, _reflection *in* a *mirror*_ makes sense because you refer to what you see when looking *into* it (or "through" it as if the mirror were a kind of window).

Note that the exact same problem arises in French (_dans_ vs. _sur_) and that the original phrase in French would be best rewritten as: _son reflet *dans* un vieux masque métallique_…


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## lucas-sp

Pardon me, now I'm quite confused. Maître Capello, I thought you were saying that in this situation "on" is to be preferred (vs. the "in" which is strictly used for a mirror). Why then should the phrase in French become "son reflet *dans*" (the same as the "dans" that is normally used with a mirror) and not remain "sur"? Isn't that "his reflection *in*," not "on"?

We'll leave aside for a moment the question of whether mirrors have depth.

(I also just did an experiment checking google for "in a reflective surface" and "on a reflective surface." The results there were pretty definitive - "in" the surface was used to discuss the reflected image that could be seen in the surface, and "on" the surface was used to describe things sitting atop or placed on the surface. I don't know if that usage really helps illuminate this one, but it seems that "in" with "surface" can be used in some contexts.)


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## redhotchili

I agree with lucas-sp. Maybe *dans *is a typo and he really meant to write *sur*?

Anyway, I am going to step away from this thread as it is making me ask myself metaphysical questions about what and where a reflection actually is. To me, the reflection is not really in or on any surface; it exists in my mind's eye. But then you could say that all of reality is in the mind; everything is shadows and reflections...

Then I thought of "reflected *BY *the surface..." in the sense that the image is reflected by the surface back to my eye where it is transformed into a neurological impulse that is then retransformed into an image that I "see" in my mind. Sorry about drifting again!!!

For all practical purposes, I think the original poster should use *ON* as it seems the most common and least awkward usage.

(I can feel the moderators breathing down my neck as they begin the process of closing this thread...)

You must admit, however, that this is a fascinating conversation about how language forms our thoughts (or do our thoughts form our language?)

I am stepping away now...


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## johnblacksox

Oddmania said:


> Je pense qu'on dit_ reflection *in *a mirror/window/ect_ (_reflet *dans *la glace/miroir/fenêtre/..._) mais _reflection *on *a surface _



I agree 100% with that.

As a matter of fact, if you are using "mirror", it's always "in".  If it's something like a lake, or mask, it would .be on. 

Also, "eyes" is always "in".  "Reflected in her eyes"


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## Maître Capello

lucas-sp said:


> Pardon me, now I'm quite confused. Maître Capello, I thought you were saying that in this situation "on" is to be preferred (vs. the "in" which is strictly used for a mirror). Why then should the phrase in French become "son reflet *dans*" (the same as the "dans" that is normally used with a mirror) and not remain "sur"? Isn't that "his reflection *in*," not "on"?


I meant to say that when using the word _surface_, only _on/sur_ is correct from a pure syntactical point of view. When using another word, then _in/dans_ usually makes more sense (although _on/sur_ may sometimes be better depending on the example).

_reflection *on* the surface of the mask = __réflexion __*sur* la surface du masque_

_reflection __*in* the mask = réflexion *dans* le masque
_


> We'll leave aside for a moment the question of whether mirrors have depth.


Mirrors don't have a depth per se, but they have an apparent depth because you can see "through" it.


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