Friday, March 9, 2012

Quant à Vous

Tintin has just climbed up the ship Pachacamac. One of the crew hears something and calls out. As Tintin ducks into an alley, another door opens. Without any hesitation Tintin leaps into the nearest cabin. Fortunately, the crew think it is a cat (or so Tintin thinks). As he turns to leave, Tintin discovers that he has accidently entered the cabin where Professor Calculus is in a drug-induced sleep. As he tries to arouse the professor, Chiquito, the Indian comes in with a revolver in his hands. He explains why Professor Calculus is designated to die. And then he threateningly says, « Quant à vous, je n’ai pas décidé … » (How a South American Spanish-speaking Indian speaks fluent French, I will never know. I wish I could speak as fluently.)

Fortunately, I recently purchased the Kindle version of French Key Words and Expressions by Saul H. Rosenthal. That helped me understand what « quant à [hear] vous [hear] » is. Turns out that this is a fairly common expression among the French and means “About you” or “as for you”.

So, « Quant à vous, je n’ai pas [hear] décidé [hear] » means “As for you, I have not yet decided …”.
I wish I had written the book that Rosenthal has written.

And yes, you got that right! The scene is from Tintin and the Prisoners of Sun or, as per the French version, Le Temple [hear] Du [hear] Soleil [hear] (The temple of the Sun)

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