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- "Il se regarde dans le miroir…
54 Comments
239
honestly, if he looks in the mirror, chances are he's looking at himself, which is why i left that tidbit out
In this case it's not about "chance", it's about the fact that the French sentence includes the indirect object, therefore it must be translated so as not to lose meaning.
One of the big dilemmas in translation is where to interpret meaning (if a direct translation doesn't exist, if the direct translation is not something that would commonly be spoken in the new language, etc.) and when to use the direct translation. The general preference is to try and preserve as much meaning as possible and use direct translations wherever possible, and in this case, the direct translation is both grammatical (with regards to English grammar rules) and something that wouldn't be weird to say in English, therefore the indirect object should be included. The main reason why it's specified is because you can look at anything in the mirror that isn't necessarily you, such as if you see someone standing behind you in the mirror or you're looking at yourself but then suddenly you start looking at something that caught your attention in the mirror. It's not as odd as you might think.
It's good you got the gist of the sentence but indirect pronouns shouldn't be ignored.
- Il se regarde dans le miroir. = He looks at himself in the mirror.
- Il les regarde dans le miroir. = He looks at them in the mirror.
- Il te regarde dans le miroir. = He looks at you in the mirror.
Thank you. But what about sentences like 'Tu te réveilles...' and such? You don't say, 'You wake yourself up.'
These verbs are known as "reflexive" verbs because they require an indirect object which "reflects" the subject pronoun to work correctly. There are some verbs where they have both a reflexive and a regular form (where the reflexive form is when you're doing the action to yourself with no direct object and the regular form is where you're doing the action to the direct object), but I don't know if this is the case with « se réveiller ».
Basically, if the verb is reflexive it means that you don't add the indirect object to the English translation, but in the case of « regarder », since it's not reflexive, the indirect object gets included.
The reflexive pronoun in « se réveiller » is a direct object. The same applies to « se regarder ».
- Il se réveille = He wakes himself up.
- Il se regarde = He watches himself
Yeah, you're right. Really I was saying, "indirect object" to refer to the type of objective pronouns used like « se », « me », « te », etc., instead of what part of speech it actually is, so that was my fault.
- 405
yes, but he could be looking in the rear view mirror, looking in the mirror to see what someone else is doing, etc etc
"look at" and "see" are different, the first one is active and the second one is passive. you can look at something and can't see it and you can see something without looking at it.
In French regarder (watch/look at) and voir (see)
- 280
Then it should be added as a correct answer. I got a heart ripped out for this! (Didn't make a remark yet, as I wasn't sure.)
- 1078
"He looks in the mirror" should be accepted, as that is what you would usually say in English" The reflexive pronoun is usually understood rather than explicit in English, unless the context suggests otherwise.
"It looks at itself in the mirror" is a totally cromulent translation, but marked wrong.
However, you did introduce a word to me, "cromulent," which I'd never heard of, so merci beaucoup pour ça!
- 886
It brought to mind the Irish crom, meaning bent or crooked (as in Crom Cruach) so almost antonymish to what cromulent turns out to actually have been created as.
Or also maybe a portmanteau of crom and crapulent, which could perhaps have had the definition 'bent over due to excessive drinking'.
- 206
But you are only assuming it in that sentence, while the French sentence is precise with the reflexive pronoun, it's not assuming anything.
he looks at him in the mirror = il le regarde dans le miroir (another man or masculine noun)
How would you say: "he looks in the mirror"? But not at himself, hes got the mirror angled perfectly to see across the room...
Why can't I say, "he watches himself in the mirror", since "regarder" is supposed to mean "to look" or "to watch"?
I must have gotten a slightly different audio exercise, but what was marked as correct was: "Ils se regardent dans le miroir", which was translated by Duolingo as "He looks at himself in the mirror" instead of "They look at him in the mirror" - Any insights?
There are many homophones in the course, some of which have been granted a special filter for the "type what you hear" exercise. This probably is the case here where the original sentence was in the singular and the homophonous plural is accepted as well.
But in translation, the singular "il se regarde" (he watches himself) should not translate to the plural "they watch themselves" (ils se regardent).
"They look at him in the mirror" cannot be a translation for the plural version because it is the translation for "ils le regardent dans le miroir"
Thanks, I started understanding that a bit better as I progressed through, although all the homophones are frustrating...
Both of those sentences have the same audio, and Duolingo isn't coded well for audio exercises since there can only be one correct answer even though there can be more than one correct answer for French, so I'm assuming it was just using both of them at the same time without realizing it
Is it me or does the 'miroir' sound wrong? I would expect it to be 'mih-ruor' but not 'MiWhaa' as it sounds
- 886
That would likely be "il regarde le miroir, lui même", and/or other word orders of that, which can have lui même in a different position.
The voice sounds like he has marbles in his mouth unless you slow it down.
I'm wondering if "il se régarde " can mean that he is looking at him
I was wondering if il se regarde means he is looking at him ( another person)
- 780
No, il se regarde means he is looking at himself (and nobody else). He is looking at him (another person) translates to il le regarde.
