How do you translate bon courage? Good courage? That's not English as I know it. I have a big French dictionary and I looked up courage. There are 27 lines of explanation which are mostly to do with courage or bravery but there is no bon courage. So then I looked up 'luck' because I had been told that bon courage was good luck. The dictionary said I could use le bonheur or bonne chance but no mention of bon courage!
Then I looked at the word bon and there are far too many lines about bon to allow me to count them, but I eventually found bon courage. The dictionary tells me that it means good luck. It was slightly easier to look in a small dictionary and find the same information. The point is that it is much more enjoyable to hear someone say bon courage to you than it is to look up a word in a dictionary.
My French desk diary today says bonne chance ce soir. I would prefer bon courage ce soir because you have to work a bit harder to translate courage than you do to tranlate chance. You can guess that chance is luck, but you can't say the same thing for courage.
Today's date is vendredi le treize février. Perhaps the French have the same superstitions.
A bientôt
About Me
- Michael Gradwell
- I enjoy languages and music and for many years I played folk and classical guitar. I still do, but in recent years the ukulele has been the instrument that I have played the most. I now have an eight-string and a four-string tenor, a concert, a soprano and even a tiny piccolo ukulele. I have many other interests, including a lifelong interest in politics, and because of this I have several blogs, including politics for novices. If you came to this page from one of my blogs and don't know about the others, you may like to check them out. Please feel free to comment on any of the blogs - let me know what you think!
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