# voir la vie en grand



## BrightonNative

Hello / bonsoir,
I'm trying to understand the meaning of this "voir la vie en grand" to find a suitable idiom in English. Has anyone heard of the expression before? To see things big, or to think big are the only guesses I have but I don't like them very much! Thanks!

Context: Ses longs yeux verts lui faisaient voir la vie en grand, son regard était beau et curieux de ce monde réduit à une petite île.


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## Maîtreaupôle

Perhaps, to see life "in the best light" or "on a grand scale"? (Rather banal, but all I can think of; and, after all "en grand" isn't all that colourful a turn of phrase, either.)


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## archijacq

gave her a big view of life


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## RayanAlArabi

I know "voir les choses en grand", maybe is it quite the same.
For example: Imagining having a big ass house, many children etc.. Stuffs like this.


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## JClaudeK

BrightonNative said:


> I'm trying to understand the meaning of this "voir la vie en grand" to find a suitable idiom in English.


Le Cambridge Dictionary donne:
_Il a fait les choses en grand pour cette fête. -  - He didn’t do things by halves for this party._

Est-ce qu'en anglais, on pourrait dire "She doesn't see live by halves." ?


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## Itisi

'allowed her to take in all of life around her'?

'allowed her to see the big picture'?

Who knows what it means...


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## nodnol

Interesting phrase, it looks quite impressionistic. - For context, could you say more about the character (and also identify the author please)?I 'd say that so far, suggestions have often been interpreting it as a positive trait, whereas it could be a negative comment about being unrealistically ambitious or maybe even calculating. - For example, is the character an adult or child..?

For what it is worth, my favourite suggestion so far was the least elegant/most awkward, which I favoured because it is the most ambiguous: the character 'sees things big' (I don't like changing 'la vie' to 'things...) - Since people seem to find the French text ambiguous and unfamiliar, I think the translation can be an equally unfamiliar English phrase.

- But perhaps further context about the character will allow us to narrow the meaning down and pick one of the other suggestions.


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## Garoubet

Based on the rest of the sentence I'd say it's a positive trait with the meaning of "Open the eyes to endless possibilities"


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## JClaudeK

nodnol said:


> Since people seem to find the French text ambiguous and unfamiliar


For French natives, "voir les choses/ la vie en grand" is _not_ ambiguous at all.


nodnol said:


> suggestions have often been interpreting it as a positive trait, whereas it could be a negative comment about being unrealistically ambitious or maybe even calculating.


_"ambitious or maybe even calculating."_ I don't think so, at  most it might be _unrealistic_.


Garoubet said:


> Based on the rest of the sentence I'd say it's a positive trait with the meaning of "Open the eyes to endless possibilities"


I fully agree with Gabouret.


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## BrightonNative

Hello and thank you very much to you all for your interesting input, 
Maîtreaupôle, archijacq, RayanAlArabi, JClaude, Itisi, nodnol and Garoubet. Nodnol wanted some context and, as that might help, here it is. Plus, I should add that it's a modern French writer but the story is set in a former era.

Dans sa seizième année, Marie était l'une de ces filles qui pouvaient prétendre [to be recruited by the school of dance]. Rousse et gracile comme une chatte, sa gestuelle la faisait cependant louve. Ses longs yeux verts lui faisaient voir la vie en grand, son regard était beau et curieux de ce monde réduit à une petite île. Elle était la fille d'une lingère et d'un maçon_. _Durant sa tendre enfance, elle aidera sa mère à étendre le linge...


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## Maîtreaupôle

As JClaudeK said, I fully agree with Gabouret. In that spirit, I'd also suggest the possibility of something like "...led her to see life with an irrepressible optimism..." or perhaps "with the highest of hopes..." To me it makes an effective contrast to the clear statement of of her humble beginnings.


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## mehoul

Je dirais que voir la vie en grand est être ambitieux, plus qu'optimiste, l'optimiste voyant la vie en rose (?)


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## archijacq

_Ses longs yeux verts_ lui faisaient voir la vie en grand

On peut extrapoler à l'infini sur les ambitions de l'héroïne.
En attendant, le sujet du verbe est bien "ses longs yeux verts". On peut traduire assez littéralement que ces grands yeux lui donnent une vision grand angle du monde.


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## Itisi

Hear, hear! / Voilà qui est bien dit !


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## nodnol

I'm concerned that the sentence works less and less well the more it is modified - even to make any one part "more 'precise". (Skip the end for my two/three favourite suggestions.)

The original phrase goes:

longs yeux verts + (we later learn additional information) beau regard

 elle voit la vie en grand

(and the additional information we learn is)

 'son regard ' est curieux du monde
 'son regard ' voit le monde comme reduit en une petite île

"Voit la vie en grand" surely has a primary meaning of *'ambition ' , *as well as suggesting the two later meanings. If a translation doesn't match this structure it will be less effective in my view.

After my first choice - the literal "allowed her to see big" - the more lyrical 'open her eyes to endless possibilities ' would be my preferred suggestion, as, although it does seem to add in a 'wide-eyed innocence ' not found in the original, it doesn't stray from the primary meaning, 'ambitious '.



Garoubet said:


> Open the eyes to endless possibilities"



Although perhaps


Itisi said:


> 'allowed her to take in all of life around her'?


 would be my joint second, although it does seem to suggest too much passivity - for  someone who moves like a *wolf*.

PS
"Ambitious/keen" is probably what I meant.


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## Itisi

It's just describing her big green eyes, that's all!  It's not to do with how she moves, or who her parents were, or anything else!

(You guys should go and write your own novels!)


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## Kelly B

Whose wide green eyes gave her a grand view of life?


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## Itisi

Sounds good, *Kelly*.  (But 'long' does not mean 'wide'... I don't know what to suggest instead...)


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## Kelly B

I know, but long eyes sounds extremely weird.


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## Itisi

Yeah!  That's why I don't know what to suggest!  (Since 'wide' sounds like the opposite of the French 'long'...)


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## nodnol

I guess the source of my radically different opinion has been, I made her eyes an agent which 'reduced the world to a small island ", - whereas the more conventional reading is that being from a small town, her world was small like an island...


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## Itisi

*Kelly*, I just realized that I had accidentally written 'Sounds goof' instead of 'Sounds good'! (#18)  Sorry about that!


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## nodnol

Okay, as for the eyes, they could be widely spaced, perhaps they could be long and slender... an image search suggests that people think almond shaped eyes might be something different... I am no expert. - The most popular image I found for longs yeux was a female ice skater with widely spaced eyes, ...and the most cited usage was by Charles Baudelaire... 

i'd draw people 's attention to the fact, there are so many more conventional ways of describing eyes than what the writer chose, eg. ses yeux en amande, ses grands yeux.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

I (not a native) am not sure that yeux longs and grands yeux are the same.


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## Itisi

'Almond-shaped' eyes is how I picture those eyes, but the trouble with that is that it would have been 'en amande' in the French...


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## ChirpingBird

Good evening,
It means « That makes him enjoy life » in a sense that he can almost do everything he wants (at least in this context).
Hope that helps !
CB
NB: please note the « metaphor » or whatever it’s called  (« eyes » and « see » in the original text)


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## nodnol

ChirpingBird said:


> Good evening,
> It means « That makes him enjoy life » in a sense that he can almost do everything he wants (at least in this context).
> Hope that helps !
> CB
> NB: please note the « metaphor » or whatever it’s called  (« eyes » and « see » in the original text)



Enjoy life, but also, appetite, ambition, - would you not agree? And 'imagines, expects' she can do everything she  wants; - in fact, I would be interested to know, is the author presenting a future tragic heroine?

Yes, the metaphor, and everything about the text seems carefully constructed; the abrupt flatness of one phrase, the highly literary nature of another - sa gestuelle est louve, we are told; this is not something conventional, like her movements were birdlike, or she was as graceful as a doe...


PS I will continue by saying: obviously, anyone who doesn't like the original text will not approve of a translation which is true to it in form and character.


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## Itisi

Kelly B said:


> gave her a grand view of life


This is as far as it goes, as far as I am concerned. (I am not going to keep repeating myself, that's it, I'm outa here!)
.


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## nodnol

Itisi said:


> This is as far as it goes, as far as I am concerned. (I am not going to keep repeating myself, that's it, I'm outta here!)
> .



My complaint would be that contributors have repeatedly gone ahead without addressing the fundamental questions. 

The question is not only, 'what do you thing yeux longs are? ' but more 'what was the author's reason for choosing this term?' If you don't start from there I can't follow you, however strong your conviction may be.



Kelly B said:


> I know, but long eyes sounds extremely weird.



It was the choice for three out of three translators here. You can see, none of them are literal, although unfortunately they are not very modern. Chant d'automne (Autumn Song) by Charles Baudelaire

Not literal:

Tout l'hiver va rentrer dans mon être

All winter will possess my being (published 1954)
Winter will enter in my soul to dwell (published 1952)
once more on me shall winter all unroll (published 1931)

yet, all stick with long eyes


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## BrightonNative

Thank you all for your additional input which I've just seen - I wasn't on the forum yesterday - Maître, mehoul, archijacq, Kelly, nodnol, Itisi, ChirpingBird and atf. I originally thought "longs yeux" must mean almond-shaped eyes (as Itisi pointed out). Perhaps it is a fairly archaic way of describing eyes akin to the poem by Baudelaire as found by nodnol. "Long eyes," as Kelly says, sounds pretty weird in English, translations of Baudelaire's poems notwithstanding. Elsewhere, I have seen a translation of _longs yeux_ as "big eyes" in the context of a cat. Marie is described as being like a cat herself.

I agree that the metaphor of _eyes _and _see _should perhaps be retained but that might be difficult in English. This part of the text recounts Marie from the age of fourteen up to eighteen. She's young, so there is the possibility of wide-eyed as in innocence but I think talking about her eyes might be just a description of her appearance and then demeanour.

"Her big green eyes gave her a grand view of life," as inspired by Kelly and archijacq, might well be a suitable translation which is in keeping with the original French, or maybe, to retain the eyes / see metaphor, "Her big green eyes made her see life in a grand way."


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## Itisi

'in a grand way' changes the meaning, I think...


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## BrightonNative

Yes, I see, Itisi.


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## PaulQ

I would suggest: "Her large green eyes let her see life's big picture"


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## Itisi

PaulQ said:


> let her see life's big picture"


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## BrightonNative

Hello, PaulQ. Thanks for your excellent suggestion - I really like it!


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## PaulQ




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