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J'ai entendu cette phrase dans un film. Je connais tous les mots, mais je ne comprends pas la phrase. Google Translate propose une traduction

oh and it's nothing too bad

Cette traduction est-elle correcte ? Est-ce un idiome ?

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  • Some variations if you're interested (depending on context) : "Laisse tomber" (especially when you can't be bothered to explain something for the nth time - "Forget about it") ; "Ce n'est pas grave" (or "C'est pas grave" is the oral version, "It's fine/nothing" in English) ; "Tant pis" (an example of use for this one would be when you ask someone to do something, he says he can't, you'd say "tant pis"/"too bad")
    – Sake
    Mar 16, 2015 at 15:04

5 Answers 5

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In written French, that would be:

Oh, et puis ça ne fait rien !

which might be translated:

Oh, anyway/besides it doesn't matter!

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I think for this phrase the tone on which it was pronounced gives away much of the meaning.

I didn't hear the movie, but I suspect the character asked something, then realized it wasn't that important to her in the first place, or was not worth the hassle, and gave up, maybe discouraged, maybe light-heartedly.

I'd translate it using variations on oh, well, nevermind / whatever.

(The google translation is not very good. Might mean the same, but takes way too many words to basically just give up.)

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  • (+1) for whatever which seems perfect for that case.
    – Romain Valeri
    Mar 16, 2015 at 9:49
  • Thanks, your guess is right. I've heard this in "Extr@" (TV show for learning). There is a guy from USA who is learning French. He ask his friends "who is taxidermiste", but they don't know how to explain, probably because he doesn't know French well. Here a link to beginning of a dialog: youtu.be/mNzbzZEJwm0?t=5m4s, phrase is at 5:34. Also, as I can hear, Annie says puis (as jlliagre noticed), not pis.
    – Dmitriy
    Mar 16, 2015 at 10:26
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It could also translate to "Oh, [and] then [in that case] never mind."

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I would translate "Ça ne fait rien" to "It doesn't matter".

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  • Why the downvote ?
    – MoonSweep
    Mar 15, 2015 at 21:21
  • You are right, yet such a short answer doesn't sound very informative (maybe it's the reason why).
    – Nikana Reklawyks
    Mar 16, 2015 at 9:27
  • Maybe, but to the point of deserving a downvote ? Upvoting the other answers and letting this one with a score of zero would have been sufficient.
    – MoonSweep
    Mar 16, 2015 at 10:47
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Je pense pouvoir deviner dans quel film (ou plutôt dans quelle série) vous avez entendu cette phrase ! ;)

Si je ne me trompe pas, le contexte laisse comprendre que la personne qui prononce cette phrase cherche à détourner le sujet de la conversation, éviter la situation dans laquelle elle doit répondre à une question difficile ou bien à une question portant sur un sujet qui fâche, un sujet assez délicat. Le sens intentionnel de son expression serait alors "tu sais, franchement, cela ne change pas grand chose, que tu saches la réponse (à ta question) ou que tu ne la saches pas".

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  • I think the full phrase shoul be «oh tant pis, ça ne fait rien».In this form it's totally meaningfull...
    – NT01
    Mar 20, 2015 at 5:52

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