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French to English translations [PRO] Art/Literary - Philosophy / Cultural essay
French term or phrase:ponctuellement
Un Musée national du cinéma est inscrit sur la liste des monuments essentiels du pays, on y voit Kim Jong-il lui-même montrer son intérêt pour la réalisation, le jeu d’acteur, la recherche de sujets correspondants à la grandeur du pays et de son peuple. Par intermittence et PONCTUELLEMENT, des films nord-coréens seront envoyés dans le monde ; des contacts, certes éphémères, car dépendants des relations diplomatiques, seront pris avec le cinéma de Corée du Sud, mais ce sont surtout les festivals des pays sous régime socialiste partout dans le monde qui constituent le réseau de diffusion international des films de la Corée du Nord.
I'm not getting this at all: 'Par intermittence et ponctuellement...' - Isn't this 'intermittently and occasionally'? It's a redundancy or is this another interpretation I'm not aware of? I know it's a tricky word so I thought I'd ask the top guns here.
I agree with you (and my answer does, too). The ''par intermittence'' refers more to time, whereas the ''ponctuellement'' refers more to reason (see the definition of ''ponctuellement'' in my answer: ''en se limitant à un objectif particulier'').
Martin has hit the nut on the head with "In this case it seems to me that the films were sent out whenever an opportunity or specific motivation arose (as opposed to regularly and systematically)." Could this not just mean the films were shipped abroad when needed and as needed which is why I said as and when required. RIP
Martin, I agree with you: "Ponctuellement" refers to points in time with no regularity implied. "Periodically" refers in physics, publishing, etc. to periods, i.e., regular intervals, which is definitely not the case here.
a number of answerers are advocating "periodically". the problem is, to my ear, that this word has two distinct usages: informally it can indeed be used to mean "not continuously"; but otherwise it means "at a regular interval", as in a periodical (published monthly/quarterly/whatever), and in this instance I think the EN version needs to avoid any hint of that.
Haven't read all the comments, but it is somewhat redundant. The idea is from time to time, on a one-off basis, and NOT at regular intervals or periodically. HTH!
surely "seront" in the context is a "past future", meaning 'starting from this point, they were ...' ; 'over the following n years, the films would be sent out ...'
qui toucha le pays, le cinéma de Corée va produire selon les années entre vingt et trente films par an, d’abord avec les moyens les plus modernes des années 50-60 qui sont aussi ceux des grands frères chinois et russes, puis avec des moyens sans cesse décroissants (notons que les Nord-Coréens sont, dès les années 80, de très prisés soustraitant de films d’animation de toutes origines). Le problème des moyens n’entame en rien la croyance en la puissance de communion nationale autour du cinéma : au contraire, le fils et successeur de Kim Il-song, Kim Jong-il, fait publier ses réflexions sur l’esthétique du cinéma. Un Musée national du cinéma est inscrit sur la liste des monuments essentiels du pays, on y voit Kim Jong-il lui-même montrer son intérêt pour la réalisation, le jeu d’acteur, la recherche de sujets correspondants à la grandeur du pays et de son peuple. Par intermittence et ponctuellement, des film nord-coréens seront envoyés dans le monde ; des contacts, certes éphémères, car dépendants des relations diplomatiques, seront pris avec le cinéma de Corée du Sud,
Alright, to give you context AND Getting feedback.
14:11 Jul 25, 2010
Until the mid-1990s, namely the tragic period of great famine afflicting the country, North Korean cinema annually produced between 20 and 30 films through the years; first with the state-of-the-art filming techniques the 1950s and 1960s had to offer (much like mentors22 Russia and China), then keeping to constantly reducing budgets (let us note that, since the 1980s, North Korea’s contribution to the animation industries of any country of origin has made them highly valued subcontractors in the field). Financial difficulties did not undermine the faith in the powerful communion between country and cinema. On the contrary: Kim Jong-il, son and successor, had his thoughts on the aesthetics of cinema published. A National Cinema Museum was put on the country’s list of essential monuments; there, Kim Jong-il himself could be seen expressing his interest in directing, acting and searching for subject matters to match the glory of the country and its people. North Korean films were sporadically sent to the outside world. Contacts with South Korea’s film industry were made; these were short-lived, of course, since they depended on diplomatic relations.
Well, to start with, the source text uses the future tense. It's hard to tell from this short extract just why, and what the overall sequence of tenses is; but you perhaps need to get that sorted out first of all. I have an inkling that you may need 'are being' here in EN, but you really need to look at the document as a whole...
as you yourself observe below, translation should not be mechanical. step back and rephrase the whole, rather than translate each word or expression. so, something like "sporadically"?
Do we have a majority vote? I'm at a loss here and if you guys could help me out with translating this sentence I will name my next kid after you. Martin if a boy, Nicky if a girl.
"ponctuel" in the sense of punctual refers to an action which occurs "on the dot" (cf. DE pünktlich<Punkt); in its other senses it refers to anything which applies or occurs at unconnected points, so it can be rendered as "ad-hoc", "spot", "specific", "case-by-case", "occasional" and many other variations.
In this case it seems to me that the films were sent out whenever an opportunity or specific motivation arose (as opposed to regularly and systematically).
Yup, I had second thoughts too but on looking carefully in my Collins/Robert electronic dictionary "par intermittence" can be translated as sporadically and "ponctuellement" can be translated as "from time to time" - thus you have no contradiction.
peer agreement (net): -4