# full-length translation



## GammaRay

Est-ce que c'est bien traduit?

He's working on his first full-length translation.

_Il travaille à sa traduction première *long-métrage*._

Merci!


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## Micia93

"il travaille à sa première grande traduction" ?


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## GammaRay

Merci Micia93! Le mot "grande" dans ce contexte-ci, n'a-t-il pas le sens d'importance et non de longueur?


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## akaAJ

I think "long-métrage" is fairly strictly limited to film.  Life would be easier if we knew whether the work was a novel or a full-length non-fiction book, but I would say "Il a commencé sa première traduction d'un roman entier", or "d'une œuvre grande comme un livre".


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## Micia93

GammaRay said:


> Merci Micia93! Le mot "grande" dans ce contexte-ci, n'a-t-il pas le sens d'importance et non de longueur?


 
Il est vrai que ça peut prêter à confusion
la suggestion d'Akaj est meilleure !


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## GammaRay

Merci pour la réponse, akaAJ.

C'est tout à fait un roman court, ce qu'on appelle un "novella," quoique en français il n'y a pas, pour autant que je sache, un mot équivalent.


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## Meille

A novella is "une nouvelle".


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## GammaRay

En fait une "nouvelle" c'est un "short story." Dans le monde littéraire on fait une distinction parce que bien que les nouvelles ne sont pas très longues (de 3 à 15 pages disons) une "novella" est trop longue pour s'appeler une nouvelle mais trop courte pour s'appeler un roman entier, comme oeuvre de fiction. Cependant, je ne sais pas si on utilise ce mot au Québec. 

De toute façon, merci!


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## Schmorgluck

"_Il travaille à sa première traduction *intégrale*."_


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## Micia93

Schmorgluck said:


> "_Il travaille à sa première traduction *intégrale*."_


 
 the best one I think !


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## GammaRay

Schmorgluck, vous avez du tact! Merci à tous!


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## joaopaolo

Traduction littéraire d'envergure?

I am not a native speaker; wait for confirmation.


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## Micia93

"envergure" suggests a huge novel (like Balzac's for instance)
apparently, it's not the case here, only sa small novel

:=)


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## akaAJ

Doesn't "intégrale" simply mean "entire", without any hint of length? "Le texte intégral" could as easily be one page as a thousand.


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## GammaRay

Now that I think of it (from a linguist's point of view), even though "long-métrage" is more often than not limited to film, does it sound all that strange to appropriate it here? I think "traduction long-métrage" gets the point across most clearly, unless it comes off as being completely wrong (which it doesn't grammatically or semantically, but maybe contextually).


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## akaAJ

Since "un long-métrage" is put together (directed) by "un metteur en scène" I think it's quite a stretch to expand it to any large work (symphony vs bagatelle, for example).


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## Surfin' Bird

J'ai une proposition inexacte et imprécise mais qui sonne plus comme ce qu'on dirait (selon moi) en français :
"... sa première véritable traduction..."


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## GammaRay

Oh, simplicity...why does it always evade me? 

Thanks!


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## akaAJ

GammaRay posed the question, apparently having in his/her head a context of which we were unaware, and which apparently we should have demanded before spending so much time on the issue.  Surfin' Bird's answer may well satisfy what GammaRay had in mind, but it bears no relation to the text that GammaRay posted.  In particular, "véritable" in no sense corresponds to "full-length".


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## GammaRay

I think his translation is the best considering French is his native language  Merci Surfin' Bird!!!


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## pointvirgule

J'aimerais bien avoir plus de contexte, mais même sans savoir ce que le type traduit exactement, je crois qu'il ne serait pas faux de dire :

_Il s'attaque à son premier travail de traduction de longue haleine.
_


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## Guerric

"véritable" est ce qui m'est venu en premier...mais ça peut être ambigu. (->_véritable traduction par rapport aux exercices de traduction qu'il a fait pendant ses études_)
Je pense que "intégrale" convient mieux (cf. le post de Schmorgluck)


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## pointvirgule

_Intégrale_, peut-être, mais  à la rigueur cela pourrait convenir à la traduction complète d'une note de service de trois paragraphes. Le sens de _full-length_, il me semble, est que l'œuvre en question a une certain longueur, qui nécessite beaucoup de travail ; ce qui n'est pas bien exprimé par _intégrale_, si on ne précise pas de quoi il s'agit.

Si on savait par le contexte qu'il s'agit bien d'un livre, alors on pourrait écrire sans ambiguïté  : _la traduction intégrale d'un livre.
_


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## GammaRay

What I meant was that it's a translation of the novella in its entirety AND one that is to be published, c'est-à-dire one that is full-length as in a complete and respectable work--one that mirrors the original = full-length translation. I guess I'm stretching the definition of full-length, but in terms of a translation of a published work, "full-length" adds a subtle undertone that exceeds _not abridged_ or _of standard length_. It's a question of length and integrity.


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## akaAJ

"Véritable" is not a hard word to understand, and can be assimilated to "his first *real* translation", implying that anything he had done heretofore had been mere squibs, possibly only fragmentary corrections of existing translations (I speculate, faute de mieux).  Nevertheless, as a native speaker of English, I can assert with authority that "full length", especially when likened to "long-métrage" by the original poster, necessarily means a work of appreciable length.  "His first real translation" could well apply to a letter, an advertising blurb, or a restaurant menu that he translated "all by himself" ("Look, Ma -- no hands!"), without outside assistance.

I repeat that Surfin' Bird might have supplied an answer that satisfied _you_ (and whatever you had in mind that you did not tell us), but it doesn't translate the actual text.

Added: sorry that pointvirgule's suggestion appeared while I was typing.  It neatly satisfies the issues I have been discussing (including not specifying what kind of text is involved).  Guerric's solution would be apt if the situation is as described at the end of my first paragraph (as with Surfin' Bird).


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## GammaRay

pointvirgule said:


> J'aimerais bien avoir plus de contexte, mais même sans savoir ce que le type traduit exactement, je crois qu'il ne serait pas faux de dire :
> 
> _Il s'attaque à son premier travail de traduction de longue haleine.
> _



Maybe I'm wrong, but doesn't "de longue haleine" has a slight negative connotation? It's kind of like a long, drawn out thing. I do like "Il s'attaque," however.


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## Guerric

GammaRay said:


> Maybe I'm wrong, but doesn't "de longue haleine" has a slight negative connotation?



I think it does.
I suggest:
_Il s'attaque à sa première traduction d'envergure._


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## pointvirgule

Absolutely no negative connotation in _de longue haleine_. It simply means that it takes an appreciable amount of work and time (Larousse: "qui exige un effort prolongé et soutenu").

Citation tirée du Cnrtl :



> _Gilbert lui annonça qu'il allait  entreprendre un travail de longue haleine. C'était une biographie de  Robespierre, qu'un éditeur (...) lui avait demandée _(Arland, _Ordre,_ 1929, p. 330).


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## Surfin' Bird

OK.

We're definitely not talking about a "long" text, then.

How about "proprement dit(e)" ?


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## Guerric

pointvirgule said:


> Absolutely no negative connotation in _de longue haleine_. It simply means that it takes an appreciable amount of work and time (Larousse: "qui exige un effort prolongé et soutenu").



Tout à fait, alors que _full-length_ n'introduit qu'une notion de durée/longueur, pas de complexité/difficulté.


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## akaAJ

On the contrary, Surfin' Bird, we are definitely talking about a full-length (implicit "book length") work.  Granted that "long" does not necessarily imply "complex", it certainly implies, as pointvirgule points out, something that requires an appreciable amount of work and time.


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## pointvirgule

Thank you, AJ. Again, I did write amount of work, with no mention of difficulty.


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## Guerric

So to you, "un effort *prolongé* et *soutenu*" does not imply difficulty...
I understand better now why you want to use "de longue haleine"....but I still think it's wrong.


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## Surfin' Bird

akaAJ said:


> On the contrary, Surfin' Bird, we are definitely talking about a full-length (implicit "book length") work.  Granted that "long" does not necessarily imply "complex", it certainly implies, as pointvirgule points out, something that requires an appreciable amount of work and time.



Funnily enough (if I dare say), I think we actually do agree and, in my opinion, the first thing that would come to a French native's mind would be "véritable" even if it sounds weird to you in this context...

It's no secret, we have different ways to express similar ideas.


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## GammaRay

I think maybe then there is a translation error on the page for _haleine_: "un travail de longue ~ a long-drawn-out job." *Véritable* suggests an element of coherence, soundness, authenticity, and those things imply that it mirrors the original in length, even if indirectly.


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## Schmorgluck

That's why I persist in my proposing "intégrale". It conveys the fact that the translation covers the _full length_ of the text involved.
In the original English, the fact that it's not just a tiny text is only _connoted_ by the fact that the translation is presented as a significant event, _just by being worth mentioning_. There's no need to convey it with further artifice in the French translation.


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## lili-rose

As a French Native Speaker I agree with Joaopaolo's translation for full-lenght in this context: envergure.

"Première traduction d'envergure" sounds great to me!


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## pointvirgule

Schmorgluck said:


> In the original English, the fact that it's not just a tiny text is only _connoted_ by the fact that the translation is presented as a significant event, _just by being worth mentioning_. There's no need to convey it with further artifice in the French translation.


My reservation is about the feeling that, reading the suggested translation alone, without seeing the original, 
_Il travaille à sa première traduction intégrale,
_there seems to be something missing.

N.B. I have nothing against _d'envergure_, sounds fine to me.


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## akaAJ

GammaRay, after all this time,  has still not provided us with any significant context or adequate additional text.  1) He made this sentence up, with some idea in mind that is not strictly contained in the text, and there is no further text (there should nevertheless still be *some *context).  2) Such material exists, but, for reasons unknown, it is not being supplied.

I also have noting against "d'envergure".  A colleague of mine, in the earlier days of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, proposed building (and eventually created) a new apparatus, hardware and software, from scratch, that solved a problem not readily approached by the means available at the time (and in fact with innovations of a finesse not available commercially today).  He introduced his successful grant application as "un projet de grande envergure, et, forcément, de longue haleine".


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## Nicomon

akaAJ said:


> Doesn't "intégrale" simply mean "entire", without any hint of length? "Le texte intégral" could as easily be one page as a thousand.


 To me, it does, as per this definition : Dont rien n’a été enlevé; qui est complet, entier. 

But then if GammaRay implies that "_full length" = « pleine longueur »_ (however long that is), then _*intégrale*_ isn't wrong, in my opinion.



pointvirgule said:


> Absolutely no negative connotation in _de longue haleine_. It simply means that it takes an appreciable amount of work and time (Larousse: "qui exige un effort prolongé et soutenu").


 I agree entirely that there isn't no negative connotation. Termium translates it as _*long range*_, and Antidote says this : de longue haleine : Qui exige beaucoup de temps et de travail. Un projet, une œuvre de longue haleine. 

If I had to translate a _lenghty _50 + pager... I'd either call it_ une traduction d'envergure _or _une traduction/un projet de longue haleine_ because obviously... it takes more time and effort than a 1 page internal memo.  However, if I had to translate those expressions back to English, I'm not sure that _full-length_ would be my first choice. _ _


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## GammaRay

Here is the additional context akaAJ so desperately needs even though other members have given adequate translations with the context I've given. I think this is a question of stylistics and does not necessarily require a _direct_ translation: "He is working on a full-length translation of Argentine author Cesar Aira's novella for his own edification." I think "d'envergure" supplies something adequate for my purposes, and for the purposes of those who respect the French language-- "of stature, considerable measure." We can talk of something with "grande envergure" which has, somehow, more weight. I think those who speak French as a native language maybe have an understanding of the language that I don't have and so I will take their suggestions into consideration, and reject those whose contributions have, as of yet, signified nothing of use. Thank you to those that have.


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## Nicomon

Guerric said:


> Tout à fait, alors que _full-length_ n'introduit qu'une notion de durée/longueur, pas de complexité/difficulté.


 À ce sujet, j'ajouterai que dans mon vocabulaire - et cela n'engage que moi - _full-length_ signifie simplement _pleine longueur/d'un couvert à l'autre/sans coupures/complet_. 
Ce peut être un discours de 5 pages ou une nouvelle de 15 pages, comme un roman de 500 pages traduit ou reproduit dans son intégralité... comparativement à un texte dont on traduirait seulement des extraits. 

C'est la raison pour laquelle je penchais plus pour _intégral. _À tort ou à raison, je fais une nuance entre _lengthy _(le roman de 500 pages) et _full-length._

To me, _d'envergure/de longue haleine_ = _large scale/long range..._ or as you said, GammaRay : "_of considerable measure_". But as I said earlier, it wouldn't have occured to me to translate it as "_full-length_". 

Combinons : _traduction intégrale d'envergure. _


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## GammaRay

I think both intégrale and d'envergure would do the trick, and even better together. Merci!


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