"Les yeux sont des fenêtres pour les émotions."
Translation:The eyes are windows for feelings.
42 Comments
I really hate that these things pop up and you never know whether to use the idiom or a horribly awkward literal translation.
"The eyes are the windows into the soul" is how this would be translated by any half decent translator. /frustration
"The equivalent idiom in UK English would be "The eyes are the windows of the soul" One of DL's answers, "The eyes are some windows for the emotions" is not a well formed sentence in English
I would say 'windows to the soul'. Maybe it's been cleansed of any religious overtones.
Same here. Whereabouts are you from? Maybe it's a U.S./Rest-of-the-world thing.
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I usually hear "to the soul" but "of the soul" doesn't sound strange to me either. I don't think I've ever heard "into the soul" though. (I live in western Canada.)
I agree, this idiom is not, or at least does not, allow you to translate it to the proper English equivalent. Which means it's not a proper translation and rather just a word for word association.
Maybe it is a deliberate echo of a cliche to highlight the difference in the modern world we have emotions but no soul?
This is what I thought, too. Except I consider souls to have always been non-existent.
The eyes are the windows for the emotions is just as correct as the Translation: The eyes are windows for feelings and should be accepted..
It accepts my "the eyes are windows for emotions" (Jan 13, 2014) so maybe yours was rejected solely because of the 2nd and 3rd 'the'.
They don't seem consistent in how they translate 'les' and 'des' etc. -- sometimes as no article, sometimes as 'some', sometimes as 'the'.
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While Duolingo accepts "The eyes are windows of the emotions," and (presumably) the first of your translations, it does not accept "The eyes are windows for the emotions."
As this thread demonstrates, the whole question needs reworking to be closer to the English idiom, so we are not left trying to figure out some awkward English translation.
Unfortunately, it only resembles an idiom in French, as in English. The actual French idiom is very like the English one, as Sitesurf has informed us, i.e., "les yeux sont les fenêtres de l'âme", or, quite literally, "the eyes are the windows of the soul".
Apparently, since this isn't the actual French idiom, we are not meant to translate it into the English one, but just translate the actual words. Sneaky, I call that.
It is better. .....windows for feelings is so wrong on so many levels in terms of language that I am speechless.
"Des fenêtres" can't be "the windows"; in this context it can only be "windows".
The French version looks suboptimal with this "pour les" construction.
A better sentence would be simpler: "les yeux sont des fenêtres des émotions"
And the French phrase is generally: "les yeux sont les fenêtres de l'âme" (soul).
I must also mention that in english we also say "eyes are windows into the soul", not windows for emotions. In english that sounds really awkward so if this is not from a french phrase it should be changed to talk about the soul
Thanks Sitesuf. Is this is so, i'm surprised that DL didn't use it in the first place: Les yeux sont les fenetres de l'ame' which would translate nicely into 'Eyes are the windows of the soul'. And everybody would be happy and we wouldn't have this fascinating discussion here :)
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This is very interesting and one should always pay attention to what things are generally expressed as soul/heart/feelings in different languages, it is one thing that is done very differently.
Yes, unless your being lay-z-ee. Sorry, couldn't resist. In before misuse of downvotes.
In think in English it is said, "the eyes are the windows of the soul" Either into or of I guess is expressive.
I understand that it's supposed to be plural by the way it was spelled in the sentence, but as an English translation we would call them the window of the emotions, not the windows. So awkward -- another heart casualty.
I wonder sometimes how many times I repeat my lessons over simply because of these small errors..
I would say "windows", I don't have a problem with that, but "emotions/feelings" sounds wrong. It's particularly annoying because, as Sitesurf informs us, the French expression is also properly "...les fenêtres de l'âme" not "...des fenêtres pour les émotions"
So, although the sentence strongly resembles an adage in French and in English, it actually isn't that adage and we must translate directly instead. Pfft.
You'd say plural 'eyes' are a singular 'window'? Well, I suppose it is figurative.
If you want to impress a woman in Paris, it seems to be the right sentence to say :)
Agree that if DL wants us to use idiomatic translations in one place, it should be consistent. This translation is nonsense in English - the eyes are windows to the soul is the correct translation. I have reported it.
