"Perdu, je ne suis pas toujours là."

[rlhutton]

The translation makes no sense to my (native English-speaking) ear.

[Sitesurf]

I suspect the intention was to mean something like "you lost! I am not always there" as the conclusion of a bet... what think?

[simobk]

French speaker here, just to let you know the french version makes as little sense as the english...

[Metropolysa]

Can't toujours also mean still? In which case the transation would be "Lost, I'm still not there"

[Bren9]

I find the sentences in English to be strange, making the translaton more difficult.

[tehwilsonator]

Definitely a weird translation. Any native-french speakers have input on this?

[Zaputin]

in this case, "toujours" is used in the sense of "still". so, in my opinion, the translation is wrong

[Sitesurf]

No, it means I am not always there.
If you want to mean "still", the French is : "je ne suis toujours pas là" (I am still not there)

[Zaputin]

yes maybe you're right, but in this way the sentence sense is absurd...

[tehwilsonator]

Yeah, "Lost, I am not always there" is a completely ridiculous translation, and doubly so if that's actually what the French means. "Lost, I am still not there" is still awkward in English, but at least might make some kind of sense, especially if we go away from literal and figure that they probably are using "la" as an emphatic, making the translation "I am not lost anymore".

[Sitesurf]

Here "lost" stands for "you lose", ie contrary to "you win" which is "gagné"' in French. Those guys probably made a bet, or the first one made an assumption like "I came to your places yesterday, I was absolutely sure you were in, since you are always at home" (je suis venu chez toi hier, j'étais absolument sure que tu étais là puisque tu es toujours à la maison). Then the other one can say "perdu, je ne suis pas toujours là".

[Sitesurf]

I think there is some misunderstanding here.

"je ne suis toujours pas là" means "I have not arrived there yet"
"je ne suis pas toujours là" means "I am not present at all times"

[tehwilsonator]

Won't let me reply below Sitesurf, but anyways: That's very helpful. So does the full sentence above become "Lost, I am not present at all times"? Would that mean he's currently lost, and then explaining the manner in which he gets lost, or is he saying that he's really not lost all that much, despite what it seems?

[Caper]

It seems from the comments that whoever made up this exercise had a first language that was neither French nor English

[Sitesurf]

Yes, I am French.