any other words of same meaning

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Permalink Reply by Benoît on April 12, 2011 at 10:12am

I heard once “anytime” used in a way that can’t be translated by “n’importe quand”.
It was in Predator (the movie):
After being thanked, a character says “anytime”.
In that case a proper translation would be “Quand tu veux !”

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Permalink Reply by yong leong on April 12, 2011 at 10:57am

Benoît,  I think in this case in the movie the guy who said ' anytime ' - he meant to say anytime I am willing to help you, well, it is a polite way to reply a thank you courtesy I believe.  So in french I would think it would be translated into the usual french expression like 'de rien' or 'pas de quoi' .  I may be wrong , you are not supposed to translated the direct way for this , just what it was supposed to mean, right?

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Permalink Reply by Benoît on April 12, 2011 at 11:41am

In fact I make a distinction between a polite way to answer a thank you:
- Thanks
- You’re welcome…
And the way a mercenary (“badass”) will answer.
- Thanks
- Anytime !
But perhaps the intonation has a major role in the distinction I make…

In French such guy can’t simply answer “de rien” or “au plaisir” (it just doesn’t fit with such a character) and something like “Pas de problème” or “Quand tu veux” seams to me more adapted.

But I’m not a specialist in translation (and I can’t remember the French version of that dialogue), I will have to check my French version of Predator to see what choice has been made…^^

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on April 12, 2011 at 3:45pm

Appropriate ways to translate "any time"/"anytime" really depend on what precisely it means.

 

If it means "whenever you want", then translations along the line of quand tu veux are probably closest. As has been mentioned, I think this option would also work quite well in response to thanks.

 

If it means "at whatever single time", then something like n'importe quand, à n'impotre quelle heure would also work (the latter being a more "precise" any time on a particular day, e.g. of when you've arranged a meeting). See also my "side note" below.

If it means "at whatever time on multiple occasions", then À tout moment is often appropriate, and "Any time that..." can be À tout moment où....

 

SIDE NOTE: As with n'importe... in general, the phrase à n'importe quelle heure can be pejorative: e.g. Il rentre à n'importe quelle heure can mean something like "He gets in at all hours of the night" (i.e. implying he stays out too late). But this is essentially no different to e.g. Tu fais n'importe quoi là, which would imply something like "You're just messing around", "You've no idea what you're doing", "What you're doing is completely stupid".

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Permalink Reply by yong leong on April 12, 2011 at 5:16pm

    

 

     Things kind of getting complicated now, Neil.   Ok, let's just say I want to say in french " He is coming any time now",  how do you say that?

       Il va venir n'importe quand -  it doesn't sound right to me.  Or if I want to say  " any time now we should receive a call from him"

       Neil, je pense je ne jamais remercira assez pour votre aide, ce website est vraiment bon.

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on April 12, 2011 at 7:03pm

Ah, OK -- sometimes it helps to give the actual sentence you want to translate!

 

Suggestions (in roughly decreasing order of formality I suppose):

 

D'ici peu, on devrait avoir de ses nouvelles/recevoir un appel de sa part.

Nous attendons son appel imminent.

Nous espérons avoir très bientôt de ses nouvelles.

 

On est sur le point de recevoir son appel.

Il pourrait nous appeler d'un moment à l'autre.

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