Can someone help me understand these French lyrics?

[Omid]

Help with this French lyrics, please

Anybody from france here?
I can't understand the following paragraph of a lyrics in French:

Rien à lui dire, il sait bien que j'ai tout à donner
Rien qu'un sourire à l'attendre à vouloir le gagner
Mais qu'elles sont tristes les nuits
Le temps me paraît long et je n'ai pas appris
À me passer de lui

Here comes the full lyrics if it's of any help to the one who is going to help me:
Céline Dion
D'amour ou d'amitié
Paroles et Musique: E.Marnay, JP Lang, R.Vincent 1982
© 1982 - Disque Pathé
Il pense à moi, je le vois, je le sens, je le sais
Et son sourire ne ment pas quand il vient me chercher
Il aime bien me parler des choses qu'il a vues
Du chemin qu'il a fait et de tous ses projets

Je crois pourtant qu'il est seul et qu'il voit d'autres filles
Je ne sais pas ce qu'elles veulent ni les phrases qu'il dit
Je ne sais pas où je suis, quelque part dans sa vie
Si je compte aujourd'hui plus qu'une autre pour lui

{Refrain:}
Il est si près de moi pourtant je ne sais pas
Comment l'aimer lui seul peut décider
Qu'on se parle d'amour ou d'amitié
Moi je l'aime et je peux lui offrir ma vie
Même s'il ne veut pas de ma vie
Je rêve de ses bras oui mais je ne sais pas
Comment l'aimer, il a l'air d'hésiter
Entre une histoire d'amour ou d'amitié
Et je suis comme une île en plein océan
On dirait que mon cœur est trop grand

Rien à lui dire, il sait bien que j'ai tout à donner
Rien qu'un sourire à l'attendre à vouloir le gagner
Mais qu'elles sont tristes les nuits
Le temps me paraît long et je n'ai pas appris
À me passer de lui
{au Refrain}



Thank you very much

 

[Astronuc]

I sure IanSmith could help.

One could try www.freetranslation.com, but it might not be totally accurate or completely translated.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Nothing to say to him, it knows well that I have very to give Only a smile to await it to want to gain it But that they are sad the nights time appears long to me and I did not learn how to pass to me from him

Cette traduction apportée à vous par Babelfish

 

[ek]

Anybody from france here?
I can't understand the following paragraph of a lyrics in French:

Rien à lui dire, il sait bien que j'ai tout à donner
Rien qu'un sourire à l'attendre à vouloir le gagner
Mais qu'elles sont tristes les nuits
Le temps me paraît long et je n'ai pas appris
À me passer de lui

Nothing to say to him, he knows I have everything to give.
Nothing that a smile waiting wants to touch. (??)
But they are sad at night.
The long times talking but I never listened.
Passing from me to him.

Extremely rough. I'm rusty, plus I was never all that good in the first place. Somebody who actually speaks the language can give you a better translation.

 

[Omid]

Thank you all for the name, the link and the translation.
Yeah ek you're right, I really need a native speaker. I'm looking for IanSmith now.
Thank you again.

 

[iansmith]

Anybody from france here?
I can't understand the following paragraph of a lyrics in French:

Rien à lui dire, il sait bien que j'ai tout à donner
Rien qu'un sourire à l'attendre à vouloir le gagner
Mais qu'elles sont tristes les nuits
Le temps me paraît long et je n'ai pas appris
À me passer de lui

Nothing to say to him, he knows that I have everything to give
Just a smile, to wait for him, to want to win him over
But nights are sad
Time seem so long and I did not learned
to lived without him

 

[selfAdjoint]

Nothing to say to him, he knows that I have everything to give
Just a smile, to wait for him, to want to win him over
But nights are sad
Time seem so long and I did not learned
to lived without him

Wouln't the last two lines be better as

Time drags on and I haven't learned
To live without him.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Mais qu'elles sont tristes les nuits

But how sad the nights are

or

But the nights are so sad

Le temps me paraît long et je n'ai pas appris
À me passer de lui

My little dictionary is giving me more for "long" than "long": slow, tedious; diffuse, drawn out, so I tend toward selfAdjoint's "time drags".

For "se passer de" it gives: to do without, so:

Time seems dragged out to me, and I haven't learned to do without him.

 

[Omid]

Wow wow.
Great.
Thank you very very much.

 

[iansmith]

Wouln't the last two lines be better as

Time drags on and I haven't learned
To live without him.

But how sad the nights are

or

But the nights are so sad

For "se passer de" it gives: to do without, so:

Time seems dragged out to me, and I haven't learned to do without him.

I went with the best of my knowledge and with some figures of speech.

This is the problem when your not a native speaker of the language you are translating to, you don't get all the subtleties of the language and you don't know all the language-specific expressions. In addition, the grammar is not going to be perfect.

It is much easier for me to translate from english to french than the other way around.

 

[zoobyshoe]

It is much easier for me to translate from english to french than the other way around.

Same here. Easier from the foreign language into my own. Regardless, your English is vastly better than my French.

 

[Omid]

Same here. Easier from the foreign language into my own. Regardless, your English is vastly better than my French.

My Persian is vastly better than your both French and English

 

[zoobyshoe]

My Persian is vastly better than your both French and English

I very much doubt your Persian is better than my English. Think of all the time you took away from your Persian studies by learning English. I, on the other hand, never diverted my attention to Persian.

 

[Omid]

I very much doubt your Persian is better than my English. Think of all the time you took away from your Persian studies by learning English. I, on the other hand, never diverted my attention to Persian.

What about the time you spent on learning French? For sure learning French requiers much much more time than learning English. On the other hand, your French is far more better than my English. As I see, you corrected a native French's mistake in translation.

 

[zoobyshoe]

What about the time you spent on learning French? For sure learning French requiers much much more time than learning English. On the other hand, your French is far more better than my English. As I see, you corrected a native French's mistake in translation.

Nay, sir. My French is paltry and limited. The advantage I had was his preliminary translation (notice I posted nothing till he did the groundwork) plus the willingness to minutely scrutinize individual words in the dictionary for fine shades of meaning. I couldn't survive a day at PF if it were a French speakers' forum.

Besides that, my English is guarranteed better than yours from having been immersed in it my whole life. I have the advantage of 20-30 years over you as well, unless you're a very old student.

 

[Omid]

Let me point out that as usual I have got what I needed from PF guys at my hands now. I mean the problem with understanding the lyrics is completely solved. Why am I posting yet? Just to talk with a native english speaker and improve my English. With this short description let me come back to my joke

Nay, sir. My French is paltry and limited. The advantage I had was his preliminary translation (notice I posted nothing till he did the groundwork) plus the willingness to minutely scrutinize individual words in the dictionary for fine shades of meaning. I couldn't survive a day at PF if it were a French speakers' forum.

Besides that, my English is guarranteed better than yours from having been immersed in it my whole life. I have the advantage of 20-30 years over you as well, unless you're a very old student.

Yeah I see, but he statement: "my Persian is better than your both English and French" is still flawless. I am not talking about my English in any way. It's clear that my English is no good. I'm comparing my Persian to your French and Ian's English

 

[zoobyshoe]

Yeah I see, but he statement: "my Persian is better than your both English and French" is still flawless. I am not talking about my English in any way. It's clear that my English is no good. I'm comparing my Persian to your French and Ian's English

I was wondering if that's what you were setting us up for.

Actually, though, your English is extremely good. I'd be surprised to find out you hadn't spent some time in an English speaking country or at least lived with English speakers.

 

[Omid]

Actually, though, your English is extremely good. I'd be surprised to find out you hadn't spent some time in an English speaking country or at least lived with English speakers.

I have never been out of my hometown and just don't know what would happen if a native English speaker stood in front of me and started to talk. I don't know wheter I was able to understand him and then say something that he understood too or not.
After improving my English a little bit more, the first thing I'm looking forward to do is to find a native speaker who will let me to talk to him on the phone. Just to check how's my English.

(The same is true for my French )

Anyway Thanks a lot for the compliment.

 

[Cyrus]

Where are you Omid, Esfahan, Tehran, or Shiraz?

Your english is very good.

 

[Math Is Hard]

I am, as always, in Haparoot.

 

[Lisa!]

I am, as always, in Haparoot.

:rofl:
kodam injo o delam jaye degar, huh?:tongue2:

 

[Omid]

Where are you Omid, Esfahan, Tehran, or Shiraz?

I'm in Tehran, but my mother's father is from Shiraz
Thank you.

I am, as always, in Haparoot.

kodam injo o delam jaye degar, huh? :tongue2:

I felt lonely, because I thought I was the only Iranian in PF.

 

[Math Is Hard]

:rofl:
kodam injo o delam jaye degar, huh?:tongue2:

So, where IS your http://www.carriefans.com/forum/images/smilies/smilies1/heart.gif then?

I felt lonely, because I thought I was the only Iranian in PF.

I've met people from pretty much everywhere on this site. I am not Iranian but the area of Los Angeles where I work has a huge Iranian community.

 

[Lisa!]

So, where IS your http://www.carriefans.com/forum/images/smilies/smilies1/heart.gif then?

wherever my :!) is!

 

[Omid]

So, where IS your http://www.carriefans.com/forum/images/smilies/smilies1/heart.gif then?

I think you know Persian, don't you? By any chance.

 

[Math Is Hard]

I think you know Persian, don't you? By any chance.

I have several Iranian girlfriends at my job who try to teach me the language in little bits. We actually have our own weird Farsi-English shorthand that is developing. For instance, my friend sent me an email today about someone who had put in an urgent request for my help and she titled the message "FYI!" which is short for "For Your Information!", and I responded "Kentucky Krispy Chicken!" which is our slang for "KKC!", which in turn, is our acronym for "Khob keh chi!"(sp?) :rofl: The guy who put in the request is a real pain in the behind so we were having some fun.

 

[Omid]

I have several Iranian girlfriends at my job who try to teach me the language in little bits. We actually have our own weird Farsi-English shorthand that is developing. For instance, my friend sent me an email today about someone who had put in an urgent request for my help and she titled the message "FYI!" which is short for "For Your Information!", and I responded "Kentucky Krispy Chicken!" which is our slang for "KKC!", which in turn, is our acronym for "Khob keh chi!"(sp?) :rofl: The guy who put in the request is a real pain in the behind so we were having some fun.

 

[Math Is Hard]

I can't wait until I am done with my French class so I can really concentrate on learning Farsi. I think the writing is so beautiful. I'm very excited about learning that. I am told that it is not as hard as it looks - that it is essentially phonetic.

 

[Omid]

I can't wait until I am done with my French class so I can really concentrate on learning Farsi. I think the writing is so beautiful. I'm very excited about learning that. I am told that it is not as hard as it looks - that it is essentially phonetic.

Very happy to hear that.
Yeah, I don't think it's hard to learn. And the important point is that in Persian there's not that much difficulty about spelling as you see in English.