Article: The Greatest Betrayal: France's collaboration in WWII [Now, also in French!]

[Plotinus]

Interesting stuff. You seem to veer disconcertingly between different tenses, though, which makes it rather hard to read.

 

[nonconformist]

Interesting stuff. You seem to veer disconcertingly between different tenses, though, which makes it rather hard to read.

Yeah, it';s the translation, the original was written in a tense which doesn't exist in English :/

 

[cool3a2]

There were many worse countries in Eastern Europe - Latvia, Lithuania and Hungary spring to mind - but Norway was probably the worst in Western Europe, which is what noncon referenced

That may be a little bit offtopic, but I simply have to ask: In what ways was Hungary worse? I mean, sure, they were allied with Nazi-Germany, but other countries were, too. For example Italy. Even Romania was for a while and I'd say, that if Hitler wouldn't have given northern Transylvania back to Hungary, they kept being allied with Germany. So if your point was about betraying someone, Romania would make more sense (don't want to judge here about Romania; the point is simply, that Romania changed sides, whereas Hungary didn't and therefore played with open cards from the beginning). At least, Hungary did not stick out under Germanys allies. Furthermore, Hungary at least had a reason for deciding for Hitler: getting back what it lost in Trianon. That may not justify to support the devil, but hell, others did this for less, I'd say. Thirdly, although Hungary send jews to german KZs it also saved lives of lots of Poles. It is often said that Horthy was same caliber as Hitler, but I think this is oversimplified. I think Horthy was a bad leader, only to make that clear. He made a lot of wrong decisions, but I don't think he was a hardcore nazi. AFAIK Hitler was actually unsatisfied with Horthy, because he (Horthy) send too few jews into death for Hitlers taste. That's why they later kidnapped his son. This ways I think Horthy was similar like Wilhelm I.: incompetent and unlucky, but actually wanted to do good things for his country. That Horthy never got punished for his politics, seems to support my opinion. So, again, no point how Hungary was worse. Finally, AFAIK, later there was also resistance against Hitler in Hungary (partisans). So, I really don't see in what ways Hungary was worse...

 

[Plotinus]

Yeah, it';s the translation, the original was written in a tense which doesn't exist in English :/

Actually I was referring to both versions!

"la France fut envahie" - past historic;

"les forces Allemands sont trop puissantes" - present;

"ils conquerront la France" - I'm not sure what this is but it most closely resembles the future tense. I think past historic should be "conquerèrent" or something like that.

 

[Japsnap]

Et donc, pour les Francophones, j'ajoute la version originelle (sans sous-titres )

Although interesting, the way "this french" is written is really really weird...somewhere between the prose of Québec and a foreigner who learnt the language but can not still prevent his brain from using native automatism.

I know I shouldn't criticize the style, but this is something I do notice when somebody writes down in French without suffering, first, years of educative hammering in french in his deep childhood.

Anyway, it's understandable and as I said very interesting.

I acknowledge, that part of french history is obnoxious ; and even today the whole concept splitting a collaborative attitude from a resistant one is a major part of a regular french behaviour. If you look closely to a french, in many situations it has a sense.

 

[Japsnap]

OK one example of the weird thing.

Fut envahie => passé antérieur ou voix passive au passé
Conquerront => Futur simple.

For information, in French you can't use the "futur antérieur" to express the past of a present while you use future in the same sentence. Also, when you talk about future in the past, I mean here something that is sure to happen (here the german conquest), you can't use the future

You should have said :

En 1940, la France est envahie , la blitzkrieg est trop forte, ils conquièrent la France
PASSE COMPOSE => PRESENT => PRESENT
or

En 1940, la France fut envahie, la blitzkrieg était (ou fut) trop forte, il conquirent la France
PASSE ANTERIEUR => IMPARFAIT ou PASSE SIMPLE => PASSE SIMPLE

I don't want to play the jerk, two years after the post.