# ça m'avait foutu la trouille



## je-ne-regrette-rien

Bonjour, j'ai du mal à traduire cette phrase : 

_cette pauvre Liliane me l'avait bien dit, ça ne lui avait d'ailleurs pas réussi toute sa connaissance elle était morte et d'une sale façon la pauvre fille, ça m'avait foutu la trouille ... _

_(Rochefort, Les Petits Enfants du Siècle) _

En particulier, j'ai du mal à traduire 'ça m'avait foutu la trouille' 

_Poor Liliane had told me about it...but anyway, all her knowledge hadn't helped her, she was dead, and from a horrid way, the poor girl... ? _

La narratrice est enceinte, et elle parle de son amie Liliane, qui est morte pendant un avortement. 

Merci d'avance. Après d'avoir traduit cette phrase, j'aurai fini le livre et je n'aurais pas pu le faire sans WR


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## Renaudbb

C'est une expression argotique (mais pas vulgaire) pour "ça m'avait fait peur". Il y a d'autres expressions du même genre : "ca m'avait foutu les chocottes" par exemple...


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## je-ne-regrette-rien

Merci ! Donc c'est 

_Poor Liliane had told me about it...but anyway, all her knowledge hadn't helped her, she was dead, and from a horrid way, the poor girl; it scared me. _


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## FRENFR

Scared the sh*t/f*ck/hell/crap out of me. (to be direct)


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## je-ne-regrette-rien

FRENFR said:


> Scared the sh*t/f*ck/hell/crap out of me. (to be direct)


 
Alors : 
_Poor Liliane had told me about it...but anyway, all her knowledge hadn't helped her, she was dead, and from a horrid way, the poor girl; it scared the crap out of me (or any of your other suggestions, FRENFR!). _


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## Cecily

"La trouille" is familiar but not rude at all.


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## Renaudbb

Well, I think that "ça me fout la trouille" is not that vulgar. A little kid could say that, even if "foutu" is more vulgar than "fichu"'. You have to choose the less vulgar possible expression among the slangy ones.


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## Cecily

Actually, I have just found out that in old French "avoir la trouille" meant "have diarrhoea" but I have never heard it used with this meaning nowadays.


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## je-ne-regrette-rien

Cecily said:


> Actually, I have just found out that in old French "avoir la trouille" meant "have diarrhoea" but I have never heard it used with this meaning nowadays.


 
That's very interesting! 

I thought 'foutre' was very vulgar (je m'en fous, fous le camp etc)?


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## Calavente

foutre (verbe) est vulgaire... à la base. (je m'en fous...etc)
mais maintenant, c'est plutôt du très familier. 

so "to scare the crap out of me" or "it scared me shitless" ... are accurate, but are IMO more vulgar in modern english than in modern french.
To find the right words, I think a english native speaker may have to find what a 10yo.. oups 7yo boy nowadays, may say when scared shitless...

maybe : "it spooked me" (nop, too gentle)
my 0.2


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## Cecily

What about : "It scared the hell out of me?" This is less vulgar, isn't it?


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## Zsanna

I think it would be important to know why (exactly) the person is frightened but from what I've read so far, I'd say that maybe the term *make one's flesh creep* could be a good one.


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## je-ne-regrette-rien

Mercure said:


> FWIW. Do you know what is "foutre" basically speaking ?


 
Nope - I thought it was 'to not give a damn'? Well, today a 7 - 10 year old boy is likely to say 'damn', 'crap', etc in English. When I was 9 or 10, my classmates definitely said 'shit', too.

Hmm, my French teacher always says 'je m'en fous', but I think she thinks that we don't understand!  She uses it as 'Do you not care?', as well - 'Vous voulez que je sois corrigé vos épreuves ? Vous vous en foutez ? !'


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## Calavente

well mercure : I knew but you could have refrained from spilling it out :/
(bad joke)
nowadays, it is a very familiar way to say "faire" in peculiar cases


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## Mercure

Okay. Que les âmes chastes et pures se rassurent, je vais retirer de suite ce que j'ai publié. Mon but n'était pas de choquer pour "faire le malin", mais d'informer le plus explicitement possible nos amis non francophones sur certaines expressions. J'ai pourtant lu des fils dans ce forum qui sont très, mais alors vraiment très, euh ... gratinés et je fais figure d'enfant de coeur comparé à ce qui a été déjà publié ici.


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## ponspa

Il est vrai qu'à lire vos messages j'ai pensé immédiatement "Attention, il y a foutre et foutre". L'expression "foutu la trouille" est familière, mais pas vulgaire. Nous sommes très, très loin du "foutre" de Rabelais, qui a effectivement une connotation sexuelle (posséder charnellement quelqu'un) mais qui appartient il me semble désormais plutôt au vieux français. Ah moins, que je ne sois une prude devant laquelle on s'abstient de ce type de langage. Non, je viens de vérifier, les références littéraires de ce mot se situent au XIXème siècle (Beaudelaire, Goncourt, Mérimée). Et ce n'est de toutes façons pas une expression que vous entendrez au 20 heures.

"Ca me fout la trouille" ou "ça me fiche la trouille", c'est blanc bonnet et bonnet blanc. Le verbe foutre a perdu de sa violence dans les expressions familières.

Il me semble effectivement utile d'informer nos amis non francophones des différents sens des mots, surtout quand ils ont des connotations aussi fortes. Histoire de  ne pas les utiliser à mauvais escient.

Cordialement.


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## DaiSmallcoal

Merci Ponspa  pour ces explications detaillées .  

Essentiel pour nous - les étudiants de la langue - une connaissance de ces expressions - quoique 'familières'


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## Aoyama

"Foutre la trouille" n'est pas vulgaire, on peut lui préférer "ficher la trouille", mais c'est un détail.
Pour le débat sur "foutre", plusieurs fils ont traité du problème.
Pour faire simple, ponspa résume bien :


> Le verbe foutre a perdu de sa violence dans les expressions familières.


Ceci dit "trouille" est plus fort que le simple "peur", c'est "très/drôlement peur", donc "it really scared me" (sans le "hell out of me" ou d'autres superlatifs plus vulgaires) irait, ou quelque chose d'autre dans la même veine.


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## Renaudbb

"it scared me to death" or even better "*it freaks me out*" could be good candidates ? what english or US people are think about that?


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## Zsanna

And if anybody bothers to have a look at the terms suggested, could they have a look at mine in n° 12, too?


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## Renaudbb

Zsanna said:


> And if anybody bothers to have a look at the terms suggested, could they have a look at mine in n° 12, too?


 
"It makes my flesh creep" or "It makes my skin crawl" : nice translation, but I feel that's more close to "ça me donne la chair de poule" ou "ca me fait froid dans le dos". More accurate for an horror movie, or something like that ? "it freaks me out" appears me more close to "ça me fout la trouille" (and more commonly used).


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## bloomiegirl

The 8 year-old boys I know are likely to say "It scared me to death" (from Renaudbb) over other suggestions in this thread.


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## Aoyama

> *make one's flesh creep*


is interesting, but it's closer to "donner la chair de poule", which is a bit too much here (I think).


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## DaiSmallcoal

*make one's flesh creep  *is a good expression - but one used in very particular circumstances and I'm not sure this is the right one. 

There is a helpful long discussion above about 'foutre & trouille' but ...
Maybe in English it would be put differently ? ?
the narrator is pregnant and she relates the awful story of her friend who died in terrible circumstances during/following a botched abortion

I can imagine an English girl saying something like..

..' I swear - It put the fear of God into me'    -
( without any religious overtones) 

Dai


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## Zsanna

Thank you for all your comments!  Just one to illustrate my hesitation:



DaiSmallcoal said:


> the narrator is pregnant and she relates the awful story of her friend who died in terrible circumstances during/following a botched abortion


 
Yes, but we still don't know _what_ the person found _really_ horrible in that story... (The _thing_ that happened to that friend, the _way_ she was treated, the idea that a thing like that _could happen_ anytime, etc.)

And do we know what sort of a person she is? (Another thing that can influence the choice of the expression to be used...)


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## je-ne-regrette-rien

Zsanna said:


> Thank you for all your comments!  Just one to illustrate my hesitation:
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, but we still don't know _what_ the person found _really_ horrible in that story... (The _thing_ that happened to that friend, the _way_ she was treated, the idea that a thing like that _could happen_ anytime, etc.)
> 
> And do we know what sort of a person she is? (Another thing that can influence the choice of the expression to be used...)


 
Well, she would be quite inclined to swear. I think it was the way she was treated...


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## bloomiegirl

Zsanna said:


> [...] Yes, but we still don't know _what_ the person found _really_ horrible in that story... (The _thing_ that happened to that friend, the _way_ she was treated, the idea that a thing like that _could happen_ anytime, etc.) [...]


Perhaps the narrator, now pregnant, was afraid that she might suffer Liliane's fate.


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## Zsanna

I think this is one of those occasions when it is not a "true" translation that is needed but an expression that'd fit best the situation. 
So my suggestion is: imagine what a native English speaker would say most likely in such a situation. (And forget about the French words and their individual meaning. )


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## je-ne-regrette-rien

There's a similar thread here. I was just wondering if it was rude or not; the dictionary gives 'foutre' in phrases, with 'damn' etc. However, it seems that kids could say it in front of their parents, so maybe 'darn' or 'damn' is appropriate... Thanks to everyone for their help!


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## Antipodean

Zsanna,  _to make one's flesh creep_ is used when one is referring to a feeling of disgust or revulsion. It is often (but not exclusively) used by women referring to men making unwanted sexual advances eg _Such and such makes my flesh creep_. It is also used when referring to persons who have committed sexual crimes - particularly towards minors. Given we are talking about the narrator's reaction to an abortion gone wrong then perhaps it might work in this context. That said, I tend to lean more towards _It scared me to death_ or something more colloquial and stronger (and perhaps used in Northern Irish English?): _It scared the living be-Jesus out of me_.


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## the-quality-man-4

"It makes my skin crawl""ça me donne la chair de poule"
"it freaks me out"ca me fait vraiment peur.


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## ponspa

je-ne-regrette-rien said:


> There's a similar thread here. I was just wondering if it was rude or not; the dictionary gives 'foutre' in phrases, with 'damn' etc. However, it seems that kids could say it in front of their parents, so maybe 'darn' or 'damn' is appropriate... Thanks to everyone for their help!



Le verbe foutre a deux sens, l'un est grossier, connoté à la sexualité, l'autre ne l'est pas, il signifie "se moquer de", "ne pas porter d'importance à", tout au plus pourra-t-on dire que le registre de langage est familier.


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## Zsanna

Thank you very much for all your comments but please note that if I insist, it is mainly to answer the original question and to provide information not only for ourselves but others who may read this thread. 

Just to explain my point of view: my first thought about _make one's flesh creep_ would be more in connection with scary things like ghosts, spiders but then I'm not a native speaker so I did not want to push it on anyone. (And anyway, it is irrelevant if the term cannot be applied here.)


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## Chris' Spokesperson

Okay, so I looked up a little about the book and it is set in 1960.  It would have been a most unusual lady in 1960 who would say 'it scared the shit out of me' or 'it scared me shitless'.

If you want it to rhyme with that though you could say 'it scared me witless'.  Or if you want it to express the gravity of the situation but in a kind of laconical fashion then you should say 'it scared me half to death'.  That is definitely what I would use if I was translating the same passage, very common and a great combination of vernacular and prosaic.


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## Zsanna

That sounds quite convincing for me, Chris' Spokesperson! 

(The question is whether it is really a translation that is needed or just possible equivalents for the expression.)


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## Chris' Spokesperson

It is always better to find an equivalent expression rather than translating directly, à mon avis!  But to find the best equivalent expression you need an idea of the tone and setting of the original piece...full context, not just its context within the sentence or paragraph.  

If the sentence was from a comedy then you could have picked from any number of beautifully colourful (and highly vulgar) English expressions!


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## Zsanna

I would totally agree with you but what I meant by translation is _the_ thing that demands a lot more than just a sentence (and some words) for a "context" and by _equivalent_ I meant a term, an expression you can find in a dictionary (that needs no or minimal context) to understand the rough meaning...


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## Chris' Spokesperson

I understand.  That is why I looked up Les Petits Enfants du Siècle on wikipedia before I gave an answer.

I used to live with a French-English translator....I miss our lengthy discussions over context and tone!


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## bloomiegirl

Chris' Spokesperson said:


> Okay, so I looked up a little about the book and it is set in 1960.  It would have been a most unusual lady in 1960 who would say 'it scared the shit out of me' or 'it scared me shitless'.
> 
> If you want it to rhyme with that though you could say 'it scared me witless'.  Or if you want it to express the gravity of the situation but in a kind of laconical fashion then you should say 'it scared me half to death'.  That is definitely what I would use if I was translating the same passage, very common and a great combination of vernacular and prosaic.


 I agree with Chris' Spokesperson, and think that "it scared me half to death" is even better than "it scared me to death" in this context.


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## je-ne-regrette-rien

> _It scared the living be-Jesus out of me. _


 

Hehe  I suppose some (older) people might say that; it would've been popular in the '50s-'80s!


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## Chris' Spokesperson

It's still very popular in Ireland and you know it regrette-rien! 

Although down south we'd pronounce it 'the livin' be-Jaysus!'


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## Antipodean

Well said Chris' Spokesperson, I too had this niggling suspicion that regrette-rien knew much more than she was letting on!


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## je-ne-regrette-rien

> Well said Chris' Spokesperson, I too had this niggling suspicion that regrette-rien knew much more than she was letting on!


 
Haha! This might work, though - 'It flipping (flippin') scared the life out of me'.


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## Gisellevangeline

Scared me to death works for me!


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## AmaryllisBunny

It scared the living daylights out of me!


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