My emailed form for a reservation in Corsica was answered with this. Could someone kindly translate? <BR> <BR>Veuillez trouvez ci-joint la reponse a votre email, mais a ce jour vellez noter que notre planning a ce jour n'est encore ouvert. <BR> <BR>Merci.

Hi Patrick. <BR>The following is a "Babel Fish" translation. If you go to altavista.com and pick translate, this translating system allows you to enter text, source and resulting language. As far as I understand, the translation does not seem perfect. But it works? <BR> <BR>Want find the answer herewith has your email, but to date vellez to note that our planning to date is not yet open. Thank you. <BR> <BR> <BR>Bjorn, Oslo

Please find herewith the answer to your email, but please note that at this date our planning is not yet open.

Patrick, <BR> <BR>My translation was the same as the previous poster's. What threw me a little was the "planning" part. I assume it means the hotel is not yet making reservations as far in advance as you are trying for. I had a hotel in Italy tell me to call back later for that reason, so I base my assumption on this.

That is correct, Dan. Sorry I wasn't clear.

Thanks all, usually I can pretty well translate the written word (just don't ask me to speak it), but I couldn't get beyond the idea that something was wrong with our dates -- like they weren't open then. Since it is for July in Corsica I knew that couldn't be. I think they just closed until March, so looks like I'll probably have to wait until then. Perhaps this is an automatic message when their machine receives the emails from their website reservation form. But isn't it odd wording?

I agree, Patrick, that the wording is "odd." "Vellez" should obviously be "veuillez," the repetition of "a ce jour" is redundant and in the last line I would have said "n'est pas encore ouvert." Makes me think that this was written by someone who a) was careless b)was not a native French speaker or c) is not well-educated. I would also like to point out that this is a good example of the fact that artificial translation, such as "Babel Fish" is no substitute for the human brain. (No offense to you, Bjorn. I know you were just trying to help.) It could not recognize a rather obvious misspelling nor the fact that "a" (the first one)should have had an accent and therefore been translated as "to" rather than as "has," although that didn't seem to bother it in "a ce jour." (Can you tell that I don't think much of "Babel Fish"?) I was also wondering, Patrick...the phrase "please find herewith the answer to your e-mail" would seem to indicate that there was more to the message. I assume that, if there was, you had no trouble translating it? Anyway, other French speakers here have given you a good translation. I envy you your trip to Corsica, a part of France that I have not had the pleasure of visiting.

Thanks again. Alas I cannot put accents on letters with my computer so that is why several were missing. But no, there was no further message sent in this email. I assume that it simply means "this is the answer to your email -- we are not yet open for reservations."

No hard feelings, Betty. <BR>I totally agree with your Babel Fish judgement. But when in wilderness, and with no one out ther to help you, that silly translator just might give you a clue... <BR>Bjorn

"planning" is French vernacular/slang for "schedule" or "program" -- so that means they don't have their schedule yet for that date (probably meaning price schedules). I always find it amusing when they co-opt an English word in French, like shampooing, pressing, planning, etc.

Hi Christina <BR> <BR>I agree about co-opting, but I still blush when I ask for a "rendez-vous" when I'm in France -- the American "slant" has jaded it for me (my French friends say it just to watch me blush)!

I don't know (I've never been to Corsica, but I'm reading "Extra Virgin" just now, which makes constant refernce to Ligurian dialect) but is it possible that this is in dialect?

FYI: You can type the "French Letters" with you computer, but it is time consuming. Example: é can be typed by holding down the Alt key and typing 0223. <BR> <BR>è = Alt 0232 <BR>à = Alt 0224 <BR>â = Alt 0226 <BR>ô = Alt 0244 <BR>ö = Alt 0246 <BR>ç = Alt 0231 etc. <BR> <BR>If anyone is interested, e-mail me and I can send them a more complete list.

Since we're really drilling down into the poor French of the man or woman who wrote this: <BR>"Please find attached the response to your e-mail, but as of today please not that our reservation desk is not yet open." This translation corrects the author's grammo's and spelling errors (already noted by others) and translates semi-slang French (planning) to the actual intention. <BR>I think part of the problem may be that he's/she's a Corsican, but then so was Napolean. <BR>

For French (and Spanish) accents, forget the alt + 0232 stuff-- I think it's far easier to type accents on a PC by changing the settings in the Language part of the Keyboard option in the Control Panel to US-International (Control Panel, Keyboard, Language, Properties). Then the apostrophe becomes the accent aigu if typed before a vowel, or a cedilla if typed before a c. The accent grave is next to the number 1, and the circonflex is on the same key as the 6. The quotation marks become ï or ö. So, you get ï á é è ç ñ, etc. If you want to use an apostrophe as itself, type a space after it, before the next letter. 'a <BR> <BR>Liz

An easier option, I think, is to do what Liz suggested, but not change languages, just press control and apostrophe (or other mark) at the same time, followed by the letter you want the accent to appear over. That way you can continue to use the comma normally. (I think the : is the umlaüt/tréma) I use a Mac, which is easier (or more logical to me), but had to research this for a friend with a PC.

Sorry, I got distracted. Randy, when I press alt my PC won't let me type anything at the same time, I just get a bell. And Sue, if I press control and the apostrophe at the same time, I get that, but no way to put a letter under it. Haven't gotten around to changing the language set-up, maybe that's next. Meanwhile I used the Babel Fish deal to translate a response into French and typed it ignoring all the special marks. Not sure if they will follow it or not, but I suppose they should be able to.

Patrick, <BR>regarding use of control char combination to place accent marks on PC, it is application specific. MS WORD works that way, but not EXCEL or IEXPLORER.

Sue, <BR> <BR>&lt;&lt;just press control and apostrophe (or other mark) at the same time, followed by the letter you want the accent to appear over. &gt;&gt; Hey, neat, I tried it, and it works! But it doesn't seem to work when you need to use a symbol that requires the shift key as well (the quotation marks, the circonflex ^, or the ~). At least I couldn't do it, even when I awkwardly touched all four of the keys in different orders , or all at once (e.g. control + quotation marks + shift + the letter). What do you do in those cases? <BR> <BR>Liz

Liz--I got my info from this source: <BR> <BR>http://www.wordinfo.com/how_to/accww7.htm <BR> <BR>and it claims the Control+Shift+6 (etc.) will put the circonflex over letters. But it does say that different versions of Word may act differently and that sometimes if you hold the combination too long before typing the letter to be accented, it will throw in an extra character... Check it out--it has other links, too. Good luck!