99 Bottles of Beer: In French

[Edena_of_Neith]

ninty-nine bottles of beer on the wall!
ninty-nine bottles of beer!
If one of those bottles should happen to fall
ninty-eight bottles of beer on the wall!

nonante-neuf bouteilles de bier sur le mur!
nonante-neuf bouteilles de bier!
si une de ces bouteilles arrive 'a tomber
nonante-huit bouteilles de bier sur le mur!

(In France and Quebec, the words quatre-vingt-dix-neuf and quartre-vingt-dix-huit would be used, but as they have too many syllables for this purpose I used the French numbers as used in Belgium and Switzerland.)

nonante-sept (97)
nonante-six (96)
nonante-cinq (95)
nonante-quatre (94)
nonante-trois (93)
nonante-deux (92)
nonante-un (91)
nonante (90)

octante-neuf ... (89)

septante-neuf ... (79)

soixante-neuf ... (69)

And if you can get that far down ...

cinquante (50)
quarante (40)
trente (30)
vingt (20)
dix (10)

[The Winslow]

Not bad, but beer is bière, not bier.

(If you can't put accents easily because of your keyboard, you can at least write it biere. Though be warned that accents are essential as many words can be ambiguous if you omit them, especially in verbs as a "é" is often the equivalent of the English "ed". For example, compare these two newspaper titles: "Un ours tue" and "Un ours tué" -- in the first, the bear killed somebody, in the second, the bear is killed. I've seen people "cheat" by typing apostrophes next to the letters, so something like "bi`ere" could do. It looks ugly, but at least it shows it's the keyboard configuration to blame, not the typer. :))

Also, "si une de ces bouteilles arrive 'a tomber" is incorrect. It would be back translated by "if one of these bottles succeeds at falling"... Say "Si l'une de ces bouteille venait à tomber" (or "si l'une de ces bouteilles vient à tomber").

[Edena_of_Neith]

Ok, bi'ere. (Yes, it looks ugly, but the keyboard just won't do the backward accent.)

Why not si une de ces bouteilles de bi'ere arrive 'a tomber?
You say this is incorrect? Why is it incorrect? I mean, I see your version, and it looks good, but why is my version incorrect? Does it violate a rule of the French language? (curious)

[Varaj]

Edena you can do all of them on the web using ascii codes.

Ex: type é to get é

Here is a list of a bunch of such codes.
http://www.ascii.cl/htmlcodes.htm

[Edena_of_Neith]

Thank you, Varaj! The help is appreciated.
Fortunately, I can type in all the accents except that one. Thankfully.

I'll check it out. Generally, I've just been doing what was easiest (for example, typing 'e has been the easiest way.)

I can cut and paste a proper 'e from my word processor program to my posts too. Just need to have that program up while I'm typing here. Why didn't I think of that before?

As for 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, I am under the impression that the verb Arriver means To Happen. But if I am wrong, what French verb does mean To Happen? Anyone?

[The Winslow]

You can also use clavier français - French keyboard LEXILOGOS (http://lexilogos.com/clavier/francais.htm) or Type French accents online (http://french.typeit.org/) for a simple way to get accents. Requires simply JavaScript to be enabled.

As for 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, I am under the impression that the verb Arriver means To Happen. But if I am wrong, what French verb does mean To Happen? Anyone?

It's just a question of expression. You don't say, in French, that a bottle happens to fall. What happens is the fall of a bottle.

"S'il arrivait la chute d'une bouteille" would be correct.

[Freedom Canadian]

"S'il arrivait la chute d'une bouteille" would be correct.

Correct, maybe, but I'd do a double-take if I ever heard someone pronounce that phrase.

"Si une bouteille venait à tomber" is, I believe, technically grammatically incorrect, but that's what you would hear people say around here.

[Edena_of_Neith]

I was going to say 'si une de ces bouteilles devrait arriver tomber' but that required too many syllables for the song.

I see neither of my verses was correct.

The fall of the bottle, Helga?
'S'il arrivait la chute d'une bouteille' (9 syllables)
If one of those bottles should happen to fall (11 syllables)

It would work. Thanks much! :)

Edena_of_Neith

[Edena_of_Neith]

Si une bouteille venait à tomber (Freedom Canadian version) (9 syllables)

That would fit in the song also. Thank you, Freedom Canadian. Cheers! :)

Yours Sincerely
Edena_of_Neith

EDIT: Understand: although I've memorized several hundred french / québecois words, I am still learning the rules for using them. And of course, the rules are very different from English, so you see me using words out of context. Please pardon this. I'll get it right ... I hope ...