A french 'friend of a colleague' wanted to check a translation from the French into English.

The original is "Tu aurais pu comme meme y penser". Is this "you could have thought about it" or "you could have thought of it"?? Are we looking at the difference between penser à and penser de? or is it purely a case of English style? - ie what is the difference between the 2 English sentences?

Penser à means to think about, as in to be in your thoughts, while penser de means to have an opinion on something.

Is that as clear as mud? Any ideas?

joanie

I think Joanie, we'd need a bit more information about the paragraph. What does the 'it' refer to?

Casey

<Added>

'Even so, you could have thought it over'

does that make better sense to your friend?

Hi Joanie,

I definitely would plump for the second option ie 'thought of it'. Technically, both are possible interpretations but the construction of the sentence as it stands strongly implies the second. My feeling is that if the person wanted to say the first they would construct the sentence differently ie 't'aurais pu y réfléchir' or 't'aurais pu penser à ça'. Also the use of 'quand même' (I think there's a typo in the text of comme instead of quand) has a slight accusation in it which implies the second to me.
Hope this helps.
My French husband used to have a dreadful problem with prepositions in English (put on, put off, put over, put down, put up with etc. all with totally different meanings). He used to say things like 'It's cold, put socks.'

Best,

A.

Thanks for responding, both of you.

Casey, I don't know what the context is; this is third-hand, from La Réunion, so it could take some time!

Thanks, Ashlinn; that seems very useful. Much appreciated.

joanie

<Added>

You're right, of course, it should be 'quand meme'.

comme meme probably typo/aural error for quand même...= 'all the same', 'anyhow' etc etc (colloquial)

Tu aurais pu quand meme y penser

You could have considered that, all the same.

You might have thought of that, all the same.

depends on context, really.

agree regarding the slight accusatory tone... so

"Honestly! You could have thought of that." is probably close colloquial English whereas the rest sound a bit forced...


vanessa

Thank you Vanessa. I appreciate your thoughts. Excellent!

joanie