sandi_travelnut

"May I take a picture?"

I know a lot of times when I travel, I want to take a picture of a person or group of children or the inside of a store...etc and I certainly don't want to offend anyone. I would like to be able to ask them if they mind being photographed if I feel the situation warrants it.

ira

Hi sandi,

A good translation site for simple sentences is http://www.freetranslation.com/.

I just point to my camera and ask, "OK?".

SuzieC

Hold your camera up and question "Photo?"

(per Rick Steve's...he said it works anywhere around the world...<GRIN&gt

Patrick

With my luck, I'd hold up the camera to them, say "OK?" and they'd reply OK, take my camera and run.

Only kidding, I agree that is the easiest and best way to do it. Anyone will understand.

sandi_travelnut

My question is how to ask them if it's ok that I take their picture, not asking them if they'd take mine.

For that latter, I usually find another English speaking tourist to do that because they always want us to then take thier picture....so we do each other a favor.

DeirdreStraughan

In Italian, you could ask "Posso fare una foto di voi?"


best regards,
Deirdré Straughan

http://www.straughan.com

Poshspice

In Italian: Posso prendervi un'immagine?

cailin

In French: Est-ce que je peux prendre une photo?

StCirq

en français:

Puis-je faire une photo? (or puis-je faire votre photo?), or more formally,
Est-ce que je peux faire une photo?

In italiano: posso fare una foto?

rex

Back to the more telegrapic approach (es) - - i.e., bordering on Tarzan speak...

Faire une photo? (fair yoon foto)

and

Fare foto? (fah-rey foto)

Be prepared, in France at least, to hear occasionally

Non, tu n'as pas le droit

(tyoo nah pah luh dwa)

The French seem to feel more fervently about this than many others.

Best wishes,

Rex

StCirq

Rex: yoon? I know transliterations are difficult, but yoon is pretty far off!

And I doubt you'd be addressed as "tu" by any French person - more likely "Vous n'avez pas le droit."

BATUFFOLINA

I agree with St Cirq, the best italian version is POSSO FARE UNA FOTO?

Poshspice's version "posso prendervi un'immagine" is wrong, I have never used it and it has no sense.
Also Deirdre's version is not totally correct. It is better to say "posso farvi una foto?" (can I take a photo of you?) rather than "posso fare una foto di voi?"

Michael

When asking in French, make sure that you add <i>s'il vous pla&icirc;t</i>, unless <i>permettre</i> is included in the request, as in <i>permettez-vous que je prenne votre photo?&lt;i/&gt;</i>

rex

&lt;&lt;And I doubt you'd be addressed as &quot;tu&quot; by any French person - more likely &quot;Vous n'avez pas le droit.&quot;&gt;&gt;

Well, bien sur - - you're absolutely right - - I was recalling hearing this from &quot;my French family&quot; (wheb I was there as part of a student exchange program) telling me this, in the third person, about others.

And if not &quot;yoon&quot;, how do you represent &quot;une&quot;? I know it is not right, but &quot;yeen&quot; seems even further from the truth.

Christina

I agree with St Cirq on the French and would not recommend the phrase Rex suggested (which could be interpreted as a command to the person to take your photo as infinitives are sometimes used as commands, especially in more impersonal situations; it doesn't make sense, anyway), nor the pronunciation.

I do think younger people might address someone as &quot;tu&quot;, though, especially if they didn't like you nor want to show respect. Young guys I don't know address me as tu sometimes, and I don't like it. Although I basically think the simple method is best if you don't speak French and just pointing and asking &quot;ok&quot; or something, might be better in the open. I don't know about in a store, though, if a small store and the proprietor or clerk is around, I think a formal sentence would be better, and I would add a &quot;please&quot; to the request (s'il vous plait). I don't know how you'd really ask politely about taking a picture of a group of children, though, unless they were the children of one person.

StCirq

Well, the best way I've ever come up with to describe the French &quot;u&quot; is that it's roughly equivalent to the &quot;EEEUUUUU&quot; sound Americans make when they're grossed out by something.
A more linguistically oriented approach is to make an &quot;EEE&quot; sound and, while doing it, close your lips the way you would to form an &quot;O&quot; sound. But there's definitely no &quot;Y&quot; sound in there.

rex

I can give tht description on how to pronounce &quot;une&quot; too. but my question remains: how would you transliterate, or &quot;spell&quot; phonetically &lt;&lt;une&gt;&gt; to an American English speaker?

That's what you criticized me for.

And sure - - as written, faire une photo (though note that I <b>did</b> include a question mark) could be taken as a command. I an thinking that the uestion mark instructs the speaker to intonate it in the form of a question, rising in tone.

But no question about it, s'il vous plait will be more important than any other part of any phrasing. My error to have omitted its importance.

cmt

&lt;&lt;but my question remains: how would you transliterate, or &quot;spell&quot; phonetically &lt;&lt;une&gt;&gt; to an American English speaker?&gt;&gt;

I don't think you have to. The original poster didn't ask for that, and I think she was simply looking for the correct voicabulary and construction.

If you were writing a dictionary or the pronunication chapter at the beginning of a foreign language text, you could use international phonetic symbols. (It would probably be helpful if those were more widely taught and learned, and then we wouldn't have to go through these strange feats of mental gymnastics trying to understand the English phonetic explanations of people who probably all speak English differently anyway.) Or, like some language books, you could explain each of the sounds by giving examples of equivalent sounds in the words that the reader is likley to know, and then, throughout the rest of the book, just proceed to spell the word normally.

Michel_Paris

Puis-je prendre votre (un) photo?

I believe 'prendre' would be better than 'faire'. 'Votre' if it is a person, 'un' if it is of a thing instead of a person.

Mike

sandi_travelnut

Thanks everyone. I had the Italin pronunciation down..no problem, I just needed to know the correct words.

My real problem is the French pronunciation. &quot;Vous n'avez pas le droit.&quot;

I know how to say &quot;vous&quot; and &quot;pas&quot; is like &quot;pah&quot; but not sure of n'avez and droit. What is the literal translation of that also?