This also works for translating from English into any other language
that uses the plural second-person as a formality. ("Vous" is the
French plural second-person, and serves as a way to address people in
formal situations or people unfamiliar to the speaker/writer.)
I asked about this in a previous post, and mentioned that English once
had both a singular AND a plural second person pronoun. These are
"thou" (singular) and "you" (plural).
Curious, I tested Google Translate using the archaic English "thou"
forms (thou, thy, thine, etc.), and it translated into the equivalent
"tu" form in French!
Of course, this is a bit of a pain, since most English speakers no
longer use the second-person singular, but if you've read Shakespeare
or the King James version of the Bible, you will be surprised how much
you can accomplish.
A word of warning, though. Verb forms are different with using "thou."
In some cases, I have had to use these old verb conjugations to get
the correct French translation, but not always.
For instance, with the verb "to be," this is what Google Translate
returns:
For "Thou are great," I got "Tu sont grands." This is incorrect. "Tu"
is singular.
For "Thou is great," I got "Tu est grand." Again, this is incorrect.
"Est" is for the third-person.
But, for "Thou art great," I got "Tu es grand." This is the correct
way to say in French, "You are great" to somebody you are familiar
with.
Hope this helps. Maybe somebody that speaks both English and another
language that has the same type of separation--such as Italian--can
try this out and let us know how it goes.
Take care,
Joshua
