Closest translation to the colloquial 'gotta say' / 'I gotta say'

Question

Just looking for the closest translation to the usage of 'gotta say' or 'I gotta say' in English. It's hard to explain the usage, so I'll just use it in an example sentence in both languages. Closed description I would have is just its used to note that its just used to emphasise that the speaker found a certain thing notable.

English: They really only speak English here, and with a bit of a weird accent, gotta say.

Proposed translation into French: Ils ne parlent vraiment que l'anglais ici, et avec un accent bizarre, (gotta say).

Here's another with the usage at the front.

English: I gotta say, I was really impressed by the level of professionalism.

Proposed translation into French: (I gotta say,) j’étais vraiment impressionné par le niveau de professionnalisme.

Any ideas? Merci d'avance (:

Answer 1

The way I understand the context of your sentences, your expression sounds equivalent to "actually", with something more personal to it. It sounds like the person expected something to be a certain way, and it turned out to be different. So they want to emphasize this observation, while still questioning themselves about it.

In my opinion, the closest answer here might be the most literal translation: "je dois dire".

Ils ne parlent que l'anglais ici, et avec un accent bizarre, je dois dire.

Je dois dire, j'étais vraiment impressionné par leur niveau de professionnalisme.

I also like "à vrai dire", or "en vérité".

Je dois dire qu'après avoir lu ces réponses, je me suis beaucoup questionné, mais en vérité, la meilleure solution est parfois la plus simple...

PS: personally, I would naturally pronounce it "j'dois dire", making it sound a bit more colloquial.

Answer 2

You could probably translate this literally with

J'veux dire, euh

Answer 3

In addition to the already suggested translations by Bazin and Personne, a recent trend in young generation colloquial French is to use avouer with this new meaning:

Ils parlent qu'anglais ici, et avec un accent chelou, j'avoue.

Answer 4

You can use « franchement » to reinforce what you're saying:

« En fait, ils parlent seulement anglais ici, mais, franchement, ils ont un drôle d'accent. »

« Franchement, j'ai été vraiment impressionné par leur professionnalisme. »

Answer 5

Considering "gotta say" is not academic but quite colloquial, the French equivalent expression can be "il faut dire", often degraded into "faut dire"("il" is elided), or "y faut dire" ("il" is replaced by "y"), or "j'veux dire" (the "e" of "je" is elided):

"Ils ne parlent vraiment que l'anglais ici, et avec un accent bizarre, faut dire."

"Ils ne parlent vraiment que l'anglais ici, et avec un accent bizarre, j'veux dire."

"Il faut dire que j’étais vraiment impressionné par le niveau de professionnalisme."