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Route OR chemin
Tous les chemins mènent/vont à Rome.
All roads lead to Rome.
Why don't we use the word 'route' in this proverb?
Route means road in English.
C'est la route de Paris.
This is the road to Paris.
All roads lead to Rome.
Why don't we use the word 'route' in this proverb?
Route means road in English.
C'est la route de Paris.
This is the road to Paris.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Frank on
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A "chemin" is a path, not a road.
"Tous les chemins mènent à Rome" is probably a very old expression.
By the way, it's now very common to replace "Rome" with anything else. If you're lost with friends in the middle of nowhere while you're initial goal was to go to Mc Donald's, you can tell your friends while taking a random road "et alors ? Tous les chemins mènent au Mc Donald's". It's kind of a joke.
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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on
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Remember that no word has a single, fixed translation. The appropriate translation for a word, phrase, sentence or even paragraph and larger units generally always depends on the context to some extent.
The other way of looking at things is that the whole point of proverbs is that they're more or less fixed expressions that have become rooted in usage "as they are". In the English version of the proverb, you could ask similar questions: why is it that people say "all roads" and not "all streets", "all paths" etc?
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