Looking for a translation into French.

How formal are the questions? I'm guessing both questions are put to strangers? I'll ask my French other half later on when I see him.

Here we go:

Désolé Monsieur, on vient juste de fermer pour ce soir. Il faudra revenir demain.

("ce soir" is actually "tonight" or "this evening" rather than "the night" which would be "la nuit", but isn't used in the same way in French)

Je recherche quelqun qui s' appelle...

Pas de soucis (or as I like to say, "pas de saucisses").

He will very much enjoy that cake :O))

April Hollands said:

Here we go:

Désolé Monsieur, on vient juste de fermer pour ce soir. Il faudra revenir demain.

("ce soir" is actually "tonight" or "this evening" rather than "the night" which would be "la nuit", but isn't used in the same way in French)

Je recherche quelqun qui s' appelle...

Click to expand...

For the second one, I'm pretty sure it's: Je cherche quelqu'un qui s'appelle...

The verb rechercher is more for research, whereas chercher would be used "to look for."

So sorry to raise conflict.

I've never heard the phrase "Je recherche..." in reference to looking for someone, where "Je cherche..." is pretty common. I can double check with my French hubby. As for the spelling of "quelqu'un" - that one I looked up in my French dictionary!

My other half is French. I have seen recherche used for 'wanted' ads here in France. It seems to be interchangeable with cherche from what I can gather.

This just in...

Well, this won't give you the consensus you want, I'm afraid. But my husband (a native Parisian) confirms that you would use the verb "cherche" not "recherche".

I ran your first phrase by him, and this is how he translated it:

Desole monsieur (and I'm sorry, I don't have the accents, but April Hollands has it right), nous venons de fermer. Revenez demain.

He says that's a colliquial but still politely formal way most French would say it.

CarolSanDiego said:

So sorry to raise conflict.

I've never heard the phrase "Je recherche..." in reference to looking for someone, where "Je cherche..." is pretty common. I can double check with my French hubby. As for the spelling of "quelqu'un" - that one I looked up in my French dictionary!

Click to expand...

You're correctamundo on both points.

April Hollands said:

Here we go:

Désolé Monsieur, on vient juste de fermer pour ce soir. Il faudra revenir demain.

("ce soir" is actually "tonight" or "this evening" rather than "the night" which would be "la nuit", but isn't used in the same way in French)

Click to expand...

You don't need to say "juste" because "on vient de fermer," all by itself, means "we've just closed." "Venir de X," where X is a verb, means "to have just done X." And as for "il faudra revenir," that's correct but virtually no one would use the future tense there. Grammar teachers and high-end literary novelists might, but shopkeepers wouldn't--regular people would just say "Il faut." There is actually no reason to use the future tense there, because "il faut," while technically in the present tense, is essentially timeless in French--it just means "you have to" in general, not "you have to right now," so it applies to the future just as well as to the present. In English we often say "you'll have to"--that is, we use the future tense to say this--but in French most native speakers would just say "il faut."

But frankly, as for what people would actually say, they probably wouldn't use "faut" at all unless you were being pushy, like trying to come in even though they were closed. Most likely, they would just say "On vient de fermer. Vous revenez demain" (with the "vous revenez" part in a tone of voice like a suggestion--understood to mean "you can come back tomorrow" even though literally it means "you will come back tomorrow").

Much more polite than all the suggestions so far for the suggestion to come back the next day: Il faudrait revenir demain. The conditional prevents it from sounding pushy.

Vous revenez demain is just wrong. It's English to use a present tense with a future indicator. And using the future tense sounds bossy.

Don't capitalize monsieur. When it means "sir" it's a common noun and shouldn't be capitalized.

So:
Désolé monsieur, on vient de fermer pour ce soir. Il faudrait revenir demain. (If it's a woman speaking, add an e to désolé.)

And:
Je cherche quelqu'un qui s'appelle...

Or if your speaker is very well-educated:
Je cherche un dénommé...

To help Azmodeus,

'Rechercher' means 'to seek again'. It doesn't have a direct equivalent in English. 'Chercher' is just to seek. Therefore, I would expect you'd want to use 'Je cherche'.

Okay, clearly all the people who don't live in France and aren't native French speakers know better, however, the native French speaker I'm speaking to right now agrees that although there are different ways of saying the two phrases, "Vous revenez demain" is just plain rude and wrong. In addition, 'juste' is possible in or out - it's used commonly and politely as much as it isn't. CarolSanDiego's husband has provided an alternative which is less formal, so it just depends how formal you want it.

Yep, he got the M in monsieur capitalised incorrectly - apologies, it was late at night here.

Regarding 'cherche' and 'recherche', either could be used, but 'cherche' is more like 'looking for' while 'recherche' is also 'looking for', but more like an enquiry. It depends how serious the search is (more serious = 'recherche'), but yes, either will do and either are correct.

This comes directly from the son of a French, Latin and Ancient Greek teacher. That might mean nothing of course....

For the record, I have lived in France. And my husband is a native speaker. I had him look at the thread with me last night so that I could be sure I was giving an accurate translation.

CarolSanDiego said:

For the record, I have lived in France. And my husband is a native speaker. I had him look at the thread with me last night so that I could be sure I was giving an accurate translation.

Click to expand...

Yep, I wasn't referring to your husband's comments in my first bit. Certainly no war. My partner is equally French and that's how he would say it. I read out the alternative and he said it's equally as possible to use (just like in English - multiple ways of saying the same thing), but that he went for what the OP asked for - the more formal way of saying it. And as I mentioned, I have seen lots of 'recherche's used on notice boards by people looking for things to buy. So, apart from believing his explanation of the difference between those two words, I too can vouch for its usage right now in France. I don't think you can rule it out as incorrect, and, in fact, seems to be the norm at least here in Haute Savoie (my partner is from the North, so the norm from there too perhaps).

April, I'm not sure who you were addressing, but don't rush into assumptions. Just because we're not trumpeting our qualifications doesn't mean we don't have them.

What you have is fine for a fancy restaurant, but it is more of a translation. Here is something that reads more like dialogue, and is less formal, more for a corner bar or a smoky dive in Marseilles:

Désolé, mon pote, on vient de fermer la. Repassez demain prendre un verre.

Vouz n'avez pas vu un mec qui s'appelle Prawn par hasard?

Seulment dans la bouillabaisse.

This version is more
"Sorry buddy, were closing up."
"Have you seen a guy called Prawn?"

> Argh, I've started a war!

Accroche-toi après ton éditeur de texte, j'enlève le dictionnaire de traduction...

-cb