Language desk
< October 19	<< Sep \| October \| Nov >>	October 21 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

October 20[edit]

a question-phrase[edit]

What's French for how often ? —Tamfang (talk) 06:09, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

[Banned user's comment and replies deleted]

I am reminded of English As She Is Spoke, a 19th century Portuguese–English phrase book, compiled by somebody who allegedly couldn't speak English but used a French-English dictionary to translate an earlier Portuguese–French phrase book, resulting in some very odd translations. Alansplodge (talk) 08:31, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Strictly speaking "combien de fois?" is "How many times?" but in some contexts that would be the most natural equivalent, e.g. in my opinion the most common way to say "How often do I stir the soup?" in French would be "Combien de fois je dois mélanger la soupe?". In some other contexts you would add "par [period of time that applies]" for example "How often do they change the water in the pool?" you would say "Combien de fois par semaine ils changent l'eau?" etc. "À quelle fréquence" is accurate but sounds a bit learned to me, it would not sound the most natural in some contexts. You've also got "tous les combien de temps? de microsecondes? d'heures?" etc. depending on the interval of time. It depends on context. What's the sentence? Btw the way, the same applies to all English "How" phrases (how fast? how hard? how slowly? and so on) Where have all native French speakers gone? Basemetal 08:41, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I know that "combien de fois" literally translates as "how many times" but I didn't think it was worth pointing that out. The fact that it's the most natural equivalent in some (in fact most) contexts was implicit in my answer. Here's another example: "How often do I have to tell you?" = "How many times do I have to tell you?" = "Combien de fois faudra-t-il que je te le répète?" --Viennese Waltz 09:18, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Since other Romance languages are likely to present the same problem (and I didn't get where I am today without knowing an obvious cognate when I see one), I find the first pointless interjection helpful. —Tamfang (talk) 11:26, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder why some jerk didn't delete the above, which is indirectly a response to the banned user. —Tamfang (talk) 02:38, 21 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I depends. What's the sentence? Basemetal 08:41, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I dealt with a cashier whose nametag had the annotation Je parle français. I wanted to ask "How often do you speak French?" (as I haven't had occasion to do so since moving here), but couldn't think how to put that in French. ~~VW's~~ Basemetal's first suggestion, Combien de fois par [unité de temps]?, is awkward whatever unit I choose: if I choose "week", the natural answer may be zero; if I choose "year", my interlocutor has to do some arithmetic. —Tamfang (talk) 11:26, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Combien de fois par siècle?" and so on was my suggestion, not VW's, but it was only an additional suggestion to VW's "combien de fois". Here you could have said "tous les combien de temps il vous arrive de parler français ici?" if you wanted to stay close to your English "how often". But the most important is that you made here the number one mistake when trying to speak a foreign language: attempting to translate from your native language into the foreign language. Instead you should try to convey your meaning with the tools you have at your disposal in that foreign language at whatever stage of linguistic proficiency you have reached. Anyway, in this case the most common ways to convey the meaning you intended, i.e. trying to find out how often that cashier gets to use their French would be: "Il vous arrive souvent de devoir parler français ici?", "Combien de gens vous addressent la parole en français d'habitude?", "Il y en a beaucoup qui vous parlent français?". The cashier most likely would have answered: "Non, ça n'arrive pas très souvent; peut-être une fois toutes les trois semaines" or "Oui, ça arrive assez souvent; à peu près une fois tous les deux jours". Basemetal 12:01, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Canadian Dictionary / Dictionnaire Canadien, concise edition (1962, 4th printing published 1969 by McClelland & Stewart) translates How often? as Combien de fois? (which it annotates as "at what intervals") or Tous les combien?. --69.159.61.230 (talk) 00:05, 21 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If combien de fois means ‘at what intervals’, I wonder how you'd say ‘how many times’. —Tamfang (talk) 02:38, 21 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Same. Context. And the tense of the verb. Again: strictly speaking Combien de fois? is How many times? It is only in context and colloquially that it is often used to mean How often? Basemetal 05:52, 21 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Tous les combien?" is quite often used, it works as a short direct question in many cases where it's the answer that will elaborate or will be constructed in a different more detailed manner. Akseli9 (talk) 15:14, 21 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Google Ngram Viewer has search results for combien souvent.

—Wavelength (talk) 00:44, 21 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Compare the Spanish phrases cuántas veces and cuán frecuentemente,

and compare the Portuguese phrases quantas vezes and quão frequentemente.

—Wavelength (talk) 01:55, 21 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really know why you posted that. "Combien souvent" is mangled non-French. --Viennese Waltz 07:35, 21 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Basemetal above is correct. As a native French speaker, that's how I would put it: "Il vous arrive souvent de devoir parler français ici?", "Combien de gens vous adressent la parole en français, d'habitude?", "Il y en a beaucoup qui vous parlent français?" Personally I find it so awkward that French language doesn't allow "combien souvent", that I some rare times use it nevertheless, with the feeling of inventing a new word and with the will to be ready to defend my invention, should anyone say something like "combien souvent ce n'est pas français". I do that also with the very convenient "hopefully" which doesn't exist in French. Although it doesn't exist, as a native French speaker speaking French in France with other French people, I proudly use my "espérablement" and the meaning is so obvious they usually don't dare making a remark like "hé, espérablement n'est pas français"... Akseli9 (talk) 15:07, 21 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Lots of times, things that Anglophones want to translate into French, but don't exist in French, have the same issue in Italian. But quanto spesso sounded fine to me. On the other hand I don't really trust my intuitions anymore, so I Googled it. Lots of hits, and they generally seemed to be using it naturally.

But when I Googled combien souvent, the hits were mostly talking about how there was no such phrase in French (and some of them echoed Akseli and said it was too bad there wasn't).

So just one more little isolated fact to remember about French, I guess. The one that amuses me is that sometimes "how much" gets translated into Spanish as como mucho ("I eat a lot"). --Trovatore (talk) 19:48, 21 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So, "hopefully" is spreading its despicable tentacles into other languages. How low the world is sinking. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:54, 21 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! —Tamfang (talk) 19:44, 21 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding combien souvent the following paper in French looks promising, at least if you're interested in the historical perspective going as far back as Old French. Hopefully (sorry Jack) Google will let you access it in its entirety (cause it won't let me): Lucien Foulet, Tous les combien passe-t-il? in Studies in French Language and Mediaeval Literature: Presented to Professor Mildred K. Pope, by Pupils, Colleagues, and Friends, Manchester University Press, 1939). Basemetal 20:39, 21 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, sorry Jack for ruining the wor(l)d but may I emphacize on that, "espérablement" is NOT Franglais (and I don't wish it was) Akseli9 (talk) 06:12, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, there's no need to be so melodramatic, Akseli. Let's maintain some perspective here. You certainly haven't ruined the world. No, you've just ruined my life, that's all. Irreparably. A somewhat lesser charge. :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:35, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]