In conversation, I wanted to express this idea in French:
I asked him to try his best to be a good role model for her, but chance would be a fine thing.
In English, at least in England, this phrasing is used to say:
- There is only the slimmest, if any, chance that something you would love to see happen will actually come true.
I looked around and stumbled across some posts where some phrasings such as "mais ça serait trop beau" were suggested, but I don't find any of them satisfactory enough to be used in this context. I'd probably have said:
Je lui avais pourtant dit de s’efforcer d’être un bon modèle pour elle, mais c’était trop demander.
How is this idea effectively expressed in French?