kawazu

[aimeekitty]

Can someone who can speak/write French help me get this phrase right?

Basically, the train says something like "Kawazu, town of history, literature and flowers" in french, on the side of the train...

photo here

what I got so far was:
Kawazu, ville d'Histoire, la Litterature, d'Fleur...?

I dont know ANY FRENCH. Help please.

Comments

[muted-hitokiri.livejournal.com]

I'm a little confused. Do you want it translated from English to French, or French to English? ^^;

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

I want the french phrase, as on the train. :) (non translated)

[muted-hitokiri.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I see! Sorry, I was a little muddled there. ^^;;

[withinity.livejournal.com]

I might guess 'Kawazu, ville d'Histoire, de Littérature et de Fleurs' but I could be wrong. ^^;

Kawazu, ville d'histoire, de litterature et de fleurs.

[ndgmtlcd.livejournal.com]

In theory it should be:

Kawazu, ville d'Histoire, de Littérature et de Fleurs.

I'm not sure if they did the correct thing by putting caps on those three words, but that's their decision. Is Kawazu "une ville jumelle" of a town in France?

I hope the "e accent aigu" or "e" with accent in the middle of the French version of literature came out right in your browser. You can see it on the side of the train, but they made it very small.

Great picture by the way!

Re: Kawazu, ville d'histoire, de litterature et de fleurs.

[beautifuldorian.livejournal.com]

It might be cause I don't ever recall seeing literature spelled with two T's in French class.

This might help, for individual words: http://www.freedict.com/onldict/fre.html

[aminamithri.livejournal.com]

Kawazu, ville d'histoire, de littérature et de fleurs.

[setsuna.livejournal.com]

"Kawazu, ville d'histoire, de littérature et des fleurs."

[fyredancer.livejournal.com]

Kawazu, ville d'Histoire, de la Littérature, et des Fleurs

Pretty train!

[yuki-yarrow.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it would be "des Fleurs" compared to "de fleurs". De refers to singular, but fleurs (flowers) is the plural of "fleur" (flower).

[withinity.livejournal.com]

'des Fleurs' (de + les) would be 'of the Flowers'. 'de Fleurs' is 'of Flowers'.

le/la/les changes for agreement with plurals, but 'de' on its own doesn't, iirc.

(At any rate, googling 'ville de fleurs' gets thousands of hits, and 'ville des fleurs' only gets a few hundred, so...)

[(Anonymous)]

Well. In fact, "(...), de fleurs" is OK, too.

[beautifuldorian.livejournal.com]

"...ville d'Histoire, du Littérature, et des fleurs."

Or so I would think, but it's been about three years since HS French... so.

[kamesama.livejournal.com]

A lot of possibilities indeed. "Kawazu, ville d'Histoire, de Littérature et de Fleurs" seems the best bet to me, given the space between each word.

Si je me rappelle correctement...

[karisu-sama.livejournal.com]

Ville de l'histoire, de la littérature, et des fleurs.

Literature is a feminine noun. As I recall, the article is almost always used in a situation where a noun is a qualifier like this ('de' plus 'la' or 'le') except visibly in "des" (which is a contraction of "de les").

[karisu-sama.livejournal.com]

(ps: from what I see on the train in the photo, I think it's in "Franponais" (the equiv. of "Engrish" :p )

[biscuitbear.livejournal.com]

I think you could say both.

Ville de l'histoire, de la littérature, et des fleurs.

or

Ville d'histoire, de littérature, et de fleurs.

Actually I believe the second option is better. It makes it sound more general, not like Kawazu has a monopoly on literature and flowers.

[ndgmtlcd.livejournal.com]

If you wanted the first one, then you would logically have to add the definite article "la" before "ville", thus making it:

Kawazu, la ville de l'histoire, de la littérature et des fleurs.

Which is rather ponderous and a bit absurd for a slogan. So you're right, the second option is better:

Kawazu, ville d'histoire, de littérature, et de fleurs.

This is also closer to what is visible on the train. By the way, the visible parts are correct French, and not "Franponais". I can't tell you why for any of this because the 14 years I've spent on school and college benches (learning my French grammar) are far behind, leaving me only "instinct" (and to a lesser extent the French version of the spelling and grammar checker in my French version of Microsoft Word) to know what's right or wrong in French, my mother tongue.