Hi,

I'm trying to translate an old joke into French and was wondering if this works:

The original English version goes "Sure we lose money on each sale but make it up in volume!" But to make sense in French, I need to make sure a proper business term for success or profits is used. This is the best I could come up with but would happily accept any improvements.

Thanks,
Bob Wilson

 

My fiancee's daughter is married to a Frenchman, lives in France, and speaks fluent French. I'll e-mail her the text of your message and see if she can help out.

 

It works fine.

RFB
SAFRAN Group
Headquarters, Paris

 

I'll give it a try:

"Sure we lose money on each sale but make it up in volume!"

"C'est certain que nous perdons de l'argent à chaque vente mais au moins on augmente notre volume"

Hope that help.

 

Well, if you still need this, here is her response:

 

Hummmm, I'm not sure because it needs to suggest a belief that profits will come with more volume of the 'losing money sales.' It is starting to get a little wordy (good jokes need to be brief.)

"Certainement nous perdons l'argent avec chaque vente mais faisons nos profite avec les volume !"

Too much Franglish?

"Certainement nous perdons l'argent avec chaque vente mais faisons nos profite avec plus ventes !"

Bob Wilson

 

Another try:

En continuant de vendre à perte nous finirons bien par faire de l'argent

It's hard to be shorter than this, french sentence are always longer to write then english one...

 

Excellent, not bad at all. If we add something to imply guileless enthusiasm . . . there was a French character in literature, Christien(?), who like the "Mr. Bean" character goes from incident to incident but by shear luck and happy accident, seems to succeed:Attributed to the dying British actor and director Sir Donald Wolfit, "Dying is easy, comedy is hard," attempts to transfer humor from one language to another is not easy. Now if we could just slip this into a politician's speech . . .

Thank you, everyone, for your help,
Bob Wilson