riche de quatre usines et de camions qui y deversent leur balles de coton

English translation: see below

13:47 Sep 6, 2000

French to English translations [PRO]

French term or phrase: riche de quatre usines et de camions qui y deversent leur balles de coton

a translation test I took a while ago. I have been playing with it for quite sometime and to no avail. Thanks for your suggestions.

Riche de quatre usines et de camions qui y deversent leur balles de coton, Koutiala, ville du sud-est du Mali, est l'un des poumons economiques de ce pays de savanes qui se perdent a l'infini.

It's the "Riche...coton" part of the sentence that's a killer!

Matt

English translation:see below

Explanation:
Good evening Matt

Thanks to four factories and trucks tipping out their bales of cotton, the town of Koutiala in the south west of Mali is at the hub of the economy of this country whose savannahs stretch out as far as the eye can see.

I hope this gives you an idea as to how you might like to express the first bit. You really can play around with this sentence a great deal though.

Nikki

Selected response from:

Nikki Scott-Despaigne
Local time: 14:15

Grading comment

You gave me the best answer. But "Riche de" does not mean "Grace a" as you suggested. After "coton" you gave an excellent translation. The village is "wealthy" with both four factories and trucks, not just four factories. It's at the factories where the trucks are "tipping out" their coton bales. "...de camions qui y deversent leur balles de coton" The "y" refers to what? has to be the "the four factories." This sentence is really difficult. It takes a lot of linguistic insight to figure it out and put it in good American English. I did eventually came up with a translation. Here it goes:

With a wealth of four factories where an abondance of trucks are overflowing with their coton bales, Koutiala, a city in the southeast of Mali, is an economic powerhouse in this country of the seemingly infinite savannahs.

Do you agree with me? Please respond.
Thanks for your suggestions. The second part of your translation was great. It's the first part of the sentence "Riche...coton" where I am having trouble.
2 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer

Summary of answers provided

see below...

Andre Argaud

see below

Claudia Esteve

see below

kecikyle

see below

Nikki Scott-Despaigne

With no less than four factories, busy with trucks unloading bales of cotton..

Peter Chambers

This is not an answer, just some congratulations!

Yolanda Broad

explanation - see below

Nikki Scott-Despaigne

Answers

31 mins

see below...

Explanation:
With a wealth of four factories and numerous trucks unloading their bales of cotton...unloading cotton bales..

or posessing four...wealthy, with
four...

Mes deux centimes,
André Argaud

Andre Argaud
PRO pts in pair: 2

48 mins

see below

Explanation:
Matt,
You might also want to try something like "endowed with" or "favored ( or favoured, depending where you are) by or with" and (a bit far-fetched) blessed with.

Good luck :-)
Claudia

The Penguin-Hutchinson Reference Library CD-ROM

Claudia Esteve
United States
Local time: 08:15
Native speaker of:

Spanish
PRO pts in pair: 28

49 mins

see below

Explanation:
Since cotton has brought prosperity to Koutiale couldn't you say something like :

With its four flourishing cotton plants and its trucks unloading...Koutiala...

Just a thought.

kecikyle
Canada
Local time: 08:15
Native speaker of:

French
PRO pts in pair: 4

1 hr

see below

Nikki Scott-Despaigne
Local time: 14:15
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in pair: 4638

Grading comment

1 hr

With no less than four factories, busy with trucks unloading bales of cotton..

Explanation:
How's that?

Peter Chambers
Local time: 13:15
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in pair: 24

6 hrs

This is not an answer, just some congratulations!

Explanation:
Since I figure that folks will come back to this site once he awards the KudoZ points, and since he has been sharing his translation concerns with us, I thought this would be as good a place as any to let you know that what Matt hasn't told you in his message is that he not only took that translation test, an admissions test to the NYU translation program, he also passed it!

Yolanda Broad
United States
Local time: 08:15
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in pair: 1551

1 day 12 hrs

explanation - see below

Explanation:
Hello Matt,

Let's see if I can make myself a bit clearer here!

RICHE DE : I think if you look in a French / French dictionary, you will indeed discover that this expression does have the sense of "grace à", "à cause de". In the case of this particular village, the factories and trucks probably do contribute to the economic wealth of the community. Never the less, the sense is abstract, in so far as the use of "riche de" is substantive. In other words, it denotes, relates to or is standing in the place of a noun - it substitutes something. The examples given in the Robert & Collins explain this quite well. Here are some of the examples given
"riche de" : (espérance, possibilités) = full of
- un acteur riche de promesses = a highly-promising actor,
- une bibliothèque riche de plusieurs millions d'ouvrages = library boasting several million books
Do you see what I mean? In the second example, we could talk about a rich collection. No use of the word rich comes easily to mind in an English version of the first example however.

DE QUATRE USINES ET DE CAMIONS :
The first part, "de quatre usines", refers just to the factories, which are four in number.
The second part, "de camions", the number is not specified, the sense is general. There are trucks. They do not necessarily belong to the factories - although some probably do!
The factories and the trucks are just listed to describe some of the village's attributes.

QUI Y DEVERSENT LEUR BALLES DE COTON : "which unload/tip out/empty out..." The part of the sentence describes what the lorries do on a regular basis. Present indicative used to describe a regular repeated event, the activity which the trucks carry out often. "Déverser" does not mean "overflow". The verb you are probably thinking of is "déborder", literally fall over the edge. "Déverser" is something which happens deliberately, rather than "déborder" which would most likeley be accidental. It is of course perfectly conceivable that in a very descriptive piece of prose, the trucks cousl be described as being so full that they overflow. That is not the sense here and "déverser" would not have been used.

Y : refers to the place where the trucks empty out their charge. Does "Y" refer to the understood and substituted village of Koutiala (which would be general) or to its factories (more specific as mentioned immediately before) is not entirely clear. But this ambiguity can be expressed by translating it simply by "there" in English. The reader of the original and of the translated versions both know as much or as little about where the bales are unloaded!

Now with regard to your translation of the sentence :
- With a wealth of four factories... :
the meaning is there but it reads a bit heavily in my view ;
- where an abundance of trucks... ;
we know that there are trucks but to describe them as being abundant is probably going beyond the information we have from the original. I think it is safer to avoid reading that much into it ;
- overflowing with : I have already explained how I understand that part of your sentence.

Perhaps others do not share my explanation. Further contributtions may well be useful to you!

Good luck.

Nikki

Nouveau Petit Robert ; Collins English Dictionary ; Robert & Collins Senior 2000

Nikki Scott-Despaigne
Local time: 14:15
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in pair: 4638

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