zoecat

I have tried some of the language translation sites but I am not sure the translations are accurate. So, I thought I would throw it out there to some of you who speak fluent French. Can you translate this to English for me?

Paris, calme au quotitien.

Merci!

suite7

quiet day

Langcraft

It translates more or less as...daily calm

StCirq

small correction - it's quotidien. We have the same word in English. It means daily.

zoecat

Thank you all! StCirq- thank you for the correction.

jpie

this is always so fun to try to get the "true sense" of translations. There is such nuance in language-I remember when I was working in France for a Fortune 500 company that we had weekly telephone conference calls in English because it was a European team and that was the only language we all had in common. My boss (French) used to come up with phrases like, "....in your peregrinations, look for business opportunities for us." All of the native English speakers would crack up even though it is a perfectly good English word

tracker

If you go to google and look along the task bar along the top left the last option is "more". Click on "more" and a drop down with "translate" will appear. Click on translate and type in your phrase; click on required conversion. The good thing with french is the verbal option. I do not speak french and cannot vouch for the accuracy of the translations or the vocals supplied.
I have heard from a dutchman it is not 100% accurate in his language so be a bit careful.
You will always receive a better answer from your fellow Fodorites!!

tracker

Zoecat, just reread your email, as a matter of interest, was google one of the translation sites you used?

hanl

I would usually translate "au quotidien" as "on a day-to-day/daily basis" or "from day to day". "Calme" could be translated as "quiet" or "calm" or "peaceful", depending on the context.

However, if you want to render a slogan in an expressive manner in English, a literal translation from French rarely works. So it really depends what you need the translation for!

I'd venture something along the lines of "Paris: peace and quiet day by day."

Having said that, in my experience Paris conjures up many things but peace and quiet is not one of them!

zoecat

Thank you all for your replies.

I guess I should have explained my request better. I am considering the phrase for the title of my Paris photo book. A friend looked at my photos and said that in many of them I had captured the calme au quotidien of Paris and thought it would be a good title. She is French and said that the phrase means more than the literal translation (as hanl has pointed out).

tracker- I did use google and it came up with "quiet day".

Christina

maybe, I am not a big fan of people who don't even know French using French phrases as book titles. I hope you would at least spell it correctly. Also, who is the market for this book? Because if it's people who don't know French, they won't know what it means and it might not sell as well as some other title. But I guess a photo book the most important thing is the photos.

AnthonyGA

It means that it's quiet and calm on typical days.

StCirq

Surely some of you know the chain Pain Quotidien (Daily Bread)?

zoecat: it strikes me as an odd name for a book.

tracker: the accuracy and usefulness of any free internet translation service are dubious at best and often hilariously off the mark. Even the massive electronic translation systems that large international organizations use, which are powered by huge lexicons developed by human beings, are flawed to the extent that human translators are always used to edit (sometimes significantly) the output.