Sep 4, 2021 10:45
2 yrs ago
40 viewers *
French term

nous étions en plein mirage

French to English Art/Literary General / Conversation / Greetings / Letters From An Art History Book
Contexte:

L’Allemand y faisait étalage de générosité, parlant non seulement d’une libération de prisonniers appartenant à l’Éducation nationale, mais encore de la possibilité de faire obtenir à la France L’Enseigne de GERSAINT. Que pouvait-on rêver de mieux ?
Nous étions en plein mirage ! Était-ce désir d’endormir nos craintes, souci de nous faire patienter ? Il faut en tout cas constater qu’au même moment le SS Obersturmführer Dr Bunjes insiste à nouveau pour le regroupement des œuvres d’art des musées, qu’il voudrait rassembler en Bourgogne, territoire bien proche de la
frontière allemande, et considéré par les nazis comme devant revenir au Reich national-socialiste.

Merci Beaucoup,

Barbara

Proposed translations

+4
36 mins
Selected

we were living in a dream world

That's the equivalent idiom, I believe. There may be less predictable equivalents.

From TLFi: "2. Au fig. Illusion, apparence trompeuse. Synon. chimère, leurre, mensonge, utopie. ... En compos. Qui est chimérique, qui relève de l'utopie."
Note from asker:
"Dream world" fits in well with the idea that follows : "putting our fears/anxieties to rest". Thank You.
Peer comment(s):

agree philgoddard : Or it was all a mirage.
1 hr
thanks
agree SafeTex
2 hrs
thanks
agree AllegroTrans
3 hrs
neutral Emmanuella : Le verbe rêver est déjà présent dans la phrase précédente
5 days
agree Sonia Lefebvre : It was all sheer illusion
11 days
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Selected automatically based on peer agreement."
43 mins

we were kidding ourselves

'Mirage' implies that it wasn't real, as in thinking you see water in a desert when you're parched and the sun is beating down, but the image is an illusion.
This is a little more colloquial than the previous answer so may not fit the style of the work being translated.
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2 hrs

living (in the middle of" a deep illusion

We live in deep illusion of tomorrow

The illusion is an imagined reality and social construct. But with enough consumption, it becomes quite easy for us to confuse this illusion with objective reality.
Something went wrong...
7 hrs

it was totally//completely//absolutely surreal

it couldn't have been more surreal

Cloud-cuckoo land
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+1
2 days 12 hrs

it wasn't very real

It was a question of whether or not the complaints should be abandoned, with the worries and concerns that made people wait.
Example sentence:

FR: Il y avait une question à ce que si des plaintes devaient être abandonnées ou non pas, avec les soucis et les inquiétudes qui faisaient du temps en attendant.

Peer comment(s):

agree Sonia Lefebvre : Je pense que c'est tous-traduit
8 days
Something went wrong...
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