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bien plus tot qu'il ne le fera

English translation: much sooner than he actually did

GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)
French term or phrase:bien plus tot qu'il ne le fera
English translation:much sooner than he actually did
Entered by: Charles Davis

21:37 Jun 23, 2017
French to English translations [Non-PRO]
General / Conversation / Greetings / Letters
French term or phrase: bien plus tot qu'il ne le fera
Bonjour, est-ce que quelqu'un de vous (anglophones) pourrait me dire si ma traduction est juste s.v.p?

Finalement Clémenceau va essayer de le convaincre de donner ses tableaux bien plus tot qu’il ne le fera et à chaque fois Monet est insatisfait, dit que ce n’est pas terminé, qu’il veut encore peindre.

Clémenceau tried to convince Monet to give the paintings much earlier than he actually would have done, and each time Monet was discontent, said they weren’t finished, that he still wanted to paint.

Merci
Grifone
Italy
much sooner than he actually did
Explanation:
Either "sooner" or "earlier" could be used, I think.

The tense should be a simple past. The French uses a historical present, whereby past events are narrated in a present timescale. In English this is much less common and largely confined to journalism. It is not suitable here. The narration should be in the past.
The future tenses are relative to this past time, treated as a narrative present. So literally, with that historical present expressed in the past, it would be "Clémenceau was to try to persuade him to hand over his paintings much sooner than he was to do so". But it is better not to put it like that; just use simple past narration for the whole thing.

I agree with you that it is clearer if you include the adverb "actually". Another possibility is "eventually".

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 12 hrs (2017-06-24 10:01:43 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

On the point raised by Tony: as I have said, in the French the action is being narrated from the perspective of a point in the past expressed as a historical present. Relative to that point, Clémenceau's attempt to persuade Monet to deliver the paintings sooner and Monet's actually delivery of the paintings later are both future events — they are yet to happen. In English, where historical present narration of past events sounds crudely over-dramatic and is hardly ever used except in a racy journalistic style, we would express the past historical reference point in a past tense, and the future tenses would become conditionals ("would do" for "will do"), more naturally expressed periphrastically in English ("was to do" for "would do"). So a literal rendering in an English past tense sequence, instead of the French present tense sequence, would be:

Clémenceau was going to try to persuade Monet to hand over his paintings sooner than he (Monet) was (actually/eventually) to do so.

But that is clumsy in English. French (and Spanish too, for that matter) likes to dramatise historical narration by putting the reader imaginatively back into the past and narrating events as future relative to that past, but English prefers to express the events from the perspective of the actual present, and from that perspective they are all past and are naturally expressed in the past. So in English this becomes the following:

Clémenceau tried to persuade Monet to hand over his paintings sooner than he actually did.

There is no change of meaning, because all that matters here is that Clémenceau wanted the paintings sooner and Monet actually handed them over later.
Selected response from:

Charles Davis
Spain
Local time: 10:27
Grading comment
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer



Summary of answers provided
4 +5much sooner than he actually did
Charles Davis


  

Answers


14 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +5
bien plus tot qu\'il ne le fera
much sooner than he actually did


Explanation:
Either "sooner" or "earlier" could be used, I think.

The tense should be a simple past. The French uses a historical present, whereby past events are narrated in a present timescale. In English this is much less common and largely confined to journalism. It is not suitable here. The narration should be in the past.
The future tenses are relative to this past time, treated as a narrative present. So literally, with that historical present expressed in the past, it would be "Clémenceau was to try to persuade him to hand over his paintings much sooner than he was to do so". But it is better not to put it like that; just use simple past narration for the whole thing.

I agree with you that it is clearer if you include the adverb "actually". Another possibility is "eventually".

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 12 hrs (2017-06-24 10:01:43 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

On the point raised by Tony: as I have said, in the French the action is being narrated from the perspective of a point in the past expressed as a historical present. Relative to that point, Clémenceau's attempt to persuade Monet to deliver the paintings sooner and Monet's actually delivery of the paintings later are both future events — they are yet to happen. In English, where historical present narration of past events sounds crudely over-dramatic and is hardly ever used except in a racy journalistic style, we would express the past historical reference point in a past tense, and the future tenses would become conditionals ("would do" for "will do"), more naturally expressed periphrastically in English ("was to do" for "would do"). So a literal rendering in an English past tense sequence, instead of the French present tense sequence, would be:

Clémenceau was going to try to persuade Monet to hand over his paintings sooner than he (Monet) was (actually/eventually) to do so.

But that is clumsy in English. French (and Spanish too, for that matter) likes to dramatise historical narration by putting the reader imaginatively back into the past and narrating events as future relative to that past, but English prefers to express the events from the perspective of the actual present, and from that perspective they are all past and are naturally expressed in the past. So in English this becomes the following:

Clémenceau tried to persuade Monet to hand over his paintings sooner than he actually did.

There is no change of meaning, because all that matters here is that Clémenceau wanted the paintings sooner and Monet actually handed them over later.

Charles Davis
Spain
Local time: 10:27
Works in field
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 56
Notes to answerer
Asker: Thank you so much!


Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Barbara Cochran, MFA
33 mins
  -> Thank you, Barbara :)
agree  Ahmet Cigil (X)
1 hr
  -> Thank you, Ahmet :)
agree  mrrafe: I would say dissatisfied not discontent - closer to the original and to the intended meaning. In any case, discontent should be discontented. Also, because no dative noun here, donate would be better than give.
2 hrs
  -> Thanks! Good points.
agree  Victoria Britten
9 hrs
  -> Thanks, Victoria!
neutral  Tony M: But I wonder about the logic here? It seems to me the 'fera' is being used with a different sense: 'than he was going to (do)' — he had to hand over the paintings sooner than he had been intending to do so. Seems to make more sense with the rest.
9 hrs
  -> Thanks, Tony. Yes, it means that M handed them over later than C wanted, but "did" expresses exactly that. M had no plan about delivery dates and the text doesn't suggest he did.
neutral  dwt2: I agree with Tony's point about "fera" here
9 hrs
  -> I don't; you could translate it as "was (going) to", but the meaning would be exactly the same as "did": it actually happened later than C wished. The only difference is that Tony's suggestion would be more cumbersome, in my opinion.
agree  B D Finch: I don't agree with Tony's point. Wouldn't that have been "ferait"? // C wanted them sooner, but that wanting would have stopped on actual delivery, so "sooner than he actually did", not "sooner than he would have done".
11 hrs
  -> The chain of events is as Tony says (C wanted them sooner, M actually delivered them later), and in the hist. present tense sequence "fera" refers to what was to happen later, but "sooner than he actually did" means the same: he did later than M wanted.
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