Glossary entry (derived from question below)
French term or phrase:
plaire
English translation:
attracted to/ fancy
French term
plaire
car celui qui te plais te quittera pour la personne qu'il aime.
My translation is below, but it doesn't make sense to me. I'm not sure I understand the intended meaning of plaire here. Any comments?
Do not leave the one you love for the person who pleases you
because the one who pleases you will leave you for the one they love.
Oct 19, 2008 14:27: Tony M changed "Level" from "PRO" to "Non-PRO"
Non-PRO (2): writeaway, Beatriz Ramírez de Haro
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Proposed translations
attracted to/you fancy
| agree |
Tony M
: Yes, definitely 'that' meaning of 'plaire' here! (please see my discussion note above)
31 mins
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| agree |
Jonathan MacKerron
: don't mistake physcial attraction for love
40 mins
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| agree |
bcsantos
: Yes.
1 hr
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| agree |
Assimina Vavoula
3 hrs
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| agree |
Ingeborg Gowans (X)
3 hrs
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| agree |
Emma Paulay
3 hrs
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| agree |
Aude Sylvain
21 hrs
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Italy
Over 15 Y expertise + reasonable prices
Native in: Russian 
, Italian
Works in: English to Italian, Italian to English, English to Russian, and 6 more.
like
because the person you like will leave you for the one they love
| agree |
Beatriz Ramírez de Haro
4 mins
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Thank you!
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| agree |
Bronwen Davies
5 mins
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Thank you!
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| agree |
Jennie Knapp
8 mins
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Thank you!
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| agree |
:::::::::: (X)
14 mins
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Thank you!
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| disagree |
Tony M
: No, because here in this particular sentence, that would create a counter-sense; it's vital here to convey the idea of 'mere physical attraction', and 'like' alone won't do that when contrasted with 'love' / That's just what 'plaire' means!
39 mins
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Well as in the original text there is no stress on physical attraction why should we stress it in the translation?
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Meticulous attention to detail
Native in: English 
Works in: French to English, Spanish to English, Catalan to English
catches your eye
Never leave the person you love for someone who catches your eye
For the person who catches your eye will leave you for someone they love.
If would sound better if it were gender specific (woman... she, or man... he)
Just an idle thought on a Sunday afternoon...
| agree |
Tony M
: I think you've correctly captured the notion of 'physical attraction', though I'm not sure this would necessarily work as the best translation solution in the context as given.
18 hrs
|
Austria
more than thirty years of experience
Native in: German
Works in: Greek to German, English to German, Greek to English, and 5 more.
don´t leave the person you love for the person you like
would be my preference
| agree |
Jennie Knapp
9 mins
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| disagree |
Tony M
: No, because here in this particular sentence, that would create a counter-sense; it's vital here to convey the idea of 'mere physical attraction', and 'like' alone won't do that when contrasted with 'love' / This is colloquial FR as spoken today in France
28 mins
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disagree; if it were physical attraction, the French language has better alternatives to offer than plaire
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The gist is "don't leave somebody you love for somebody you just like, because the person you like w
| agree |
Jennie Knapp
: d'accord avec "you like", plaire =like
5 hrs
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| disagree |
Tony M
: No, because here in this particular sentence, that would create a counter-sense; it's vital here to convey the idea of 'mere physical attraction', and 'like' alone won't do that when contrasted with 'love'
16 hrs
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infatuaton/infatuate
Never leave someone you love for a mere infatuation, else the one with whom you were infatuated will surely leave you for one he/she loves...
Discussion
Certainly, it is a softer, more euphemistic way than the EN of saying 'to fancy the pants off someone', but there is no doubt about it, that IS the meaning it carries in this day and age (well, perhaps without the colourful intensifier...!).<br><br>
After all, it is only really like the (now quaintly old-fashioned) EN expression: "s/he pleases me" — we might all do well not to lose sight of the fact that the underlying meaning of 'plaire' is indeed 'to please', and this only gets twisted into 'to like' (with subject / object inversion) because of modern EN usage being different (cf. the comparable situation with 'manquer' = 'to lack', but used as 'to miss', again with s/o inversion).<br><br>
I mix with a lot of young people around here, and I can assure you, when my young neighbour says "Il me plaît", she definitely means it in the sense of "I fancy him"; if she just wanted to say that she likes him, she'd be much more careful to say "Je l'apprécie" etc. In fact, I have even know her to say "Je l'aime bien, mais il me plaît pas" — "I like him well enough, but I don't actually fancy him" (as you may have gathered by now, she's a hard lass to please!)<br><br>
When we broke up, my ex said spitefully "Tu m'as jamais vraiment plu" — and he certainly wasn't meaning "I've never liked you!"