Parlez What?

[woodwardiocom]

-Need a translation of an eBay communication. Here's what he said in French:

Bonjour, c'est pour vous dire que le mandat banque concernant les nombreuses cartes (Arabian) que j'ai remporté part aujourd'hui, j'aimerai que vous me préveniez dès la réception et dès l'envoi des cartes.

-I am selling this guy a pair of Arabian Nights Magic cards, for context. (Babel fish and Google are no help here.)

Comments

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

-Merci beaucoup. (And we've now exhausted my French.) Now I get to tell the guy that I don't accept foreign money orders...

[thespian.livejournal.com]

right. le mandat banque is a 'bank draft'.

[metalfatigue]

"Bonjour. Je regrette que je ne peux pas accepter les mandats banques d'autre pays."

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

-Actually, I decided to roll with it. Yeah, my payment terms were clear, but arguing with this guy would be a royal pain, and French money orders are still money. Plus, PayPal won't get to take a bite.

[archangelbeth]

There's also http://babelfish.altavista.com/ ...

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

-The first message he sent me had been run through the Google translator. It was borderline gibberish. Babel Fish did worse.

[archangelbeth]

Oh. Oh, well. I'd thought it was just a lack of the accented characters that made it look funny...

[metalfatigue]

Babelfish and Google don't do well with idioms, generally.