tenlittlebullets: (Default)
Ten Little Chances to be Free ([personal profile] tenlittlebullets) wrote in [community profile] les_miserables 2014-04-01 01:26 am (UTC)

If there's a school edition, it's probably abridged. :( The Bibliothèque de la Pléiade edition is heavily annotated, but mostly with historical/classical references and errata from the rough drafts. It's also gorgeous, leatherbound and printed on Bible paper, and predictably expensive.

I guess what I'd recommend for getting into the French is to find an online edition and read the scenes you already know pretty well in English, which should allow you to get back into the swing of the grammar and vocabulary enough to start on the less-familiar scenes + a WordReference tab. Then gradually wean yourself off the dictionary tab and move to a print edition. That, plus translations of short scenes from the rough drafts that had never existed in English before, was pretty much how I learned French (so I am biased in recommending it, but hey, it worked for at least one person!).

Donougher, which is the translation I'm currently reading, handles T/V distinction both via footnotes and in text, with phrases like "...was no longer being insultingly familiar with him." It's awkward, but it's impossible to make it not awkward, so I'm glad she's at least being thorough about it.

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