Sentences without a subject

Bonjour tout le monde,

I struggle with translating sentences without a subject. For instance:

“…Tenter de conserver la curiosité de l'adolescence sous un visage adulte. Pas facile….”

a) I am trying to keep the curiosity of the teen age under the adult face.  Not easy…

b) Try to keep the curiosity of the teen age ….

Which one is correct?

Merci,

Vít Novák

Bonjour Vít,

Nejste náhodou Čech?

Normally if we are translating sentences like this into English, without a subject and based on a verb, then we would use the gerund or -ing form of the verb in English. Taking your example above, I would translate it something along the lines of:

• Tenter de conserver la curiosité de l'adolescence sous un visage adulte. Pas facile.
• Trying to maintain adolescent curiosity behind an adult face. Not easy.

Out of context, that is the best I can really do. For sentences like this one, you really need the surrounding context to make sure the abstract nature of the sentence is translated to make sense within the whole. Do you have more context for the sentence?

I hope this help in the meantime!

   -   Mitchell

Bonjour Mitchell,

yes, I do have the context.  Yet the context is ambiguos: see for yourself.

...Il faut se confronter, une fois pour toutes, au temps et à la mort.  C'est une question de choix, en somme. C'est le moment où l'on commence à penser  à la chirurgie esthétique pour échapper aux lois du viellissement. Où l'on  a le courage, sinon, de saboter les schémas rassurants. Tenter de conserver la curiosité de l'adolescence sous un visage adulte.  Pas facile...

(Monica answering an impertinent question by Guillalume about aging - in Monica Bellucci/Guillaume Sbalchiero : Rencontres clandestines)

Merci,

Vít Novák

P.S.

mimochodem, ano. Jsem Čech, tedy přesně Moravák
 

Bonjour Vít,

Yeah, that is very abstract and somewhat philosophical which are always difficult to translate because they can often be left up to interpretation. However, as it stands the above translation would be fine.

Kudos to you for reading such a book, I hope it is going well.

C'est avec plaisir!

   -   Mitchell

P.S.

C'est rare que je rencontre un Tchèque sur RocketLanguages. Ma femme est Moravienne.