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The following is a written description that is displayed on a streaming site, for a Québecois TV Show series called "Le Rêve Olympique". I am having trouble understanding "avec que", which is bolded:

À l’aube des Jeux olympiques de Tokyo, renouez avec ces athlètes qui vous ont fait vivre de grandes émotions à l’été 2016 à Rio. Certains d’entre vous ont vibré en regardant la bande à Penny Oleksiak ramasser les médailles à la poignée à la piscine, d’autres ont versé des larmes avec qu’Antoine Valois-Fortier en quittant son tatami, alors que d’autres ont explosé de fierté en franchissant le fil d’arrivée avec Andre de Grasse sur la piste du stade olympique.

(Here is the website for the show, with this description written out; I believe the website should be accessible to people outside of Canada, even if streaming the actual video isn't)

DeepL gives the translation:

Some of you were thrilled to watch Penny Oleksiak's gang pick up medals by the handful at the pool, others shed tears with Antoine Valois-Fortier as he left his tatami, while others exploded with pride as they crossed the finish line with Andre de Grasse on the Olympic Stadium track.

Here are some thoughts I had, although none of them clarified for me what "avec que" meant:

  • My first thought was that "avec que" could be a subordinating conjunction, like "parce que" or "alors que", but dictionaries didn't result in any searches for "avec que" even though they did result in searches for "parce que". Then I realized that what follows "avec que" ("Antoine Valois-Fortier en quittant son tatami") wasn't a finite clause, which I expect to find after every subordinating conjunction. So, it makes sense that "avec que" is not a subordinating conjunction.
  • My next thought was to try to translate DeepL's English translation back into French, to see if that might give me a new idea about "avec que". If I try to translate "others shed tears with Antoine as he left his tatami", I might say: "d'autres ont versé des larmes avec Antoine, pendant qu'il quitte son tatami".
  • The following is the original sentence, bu twithout the que: "d'autres ont versé des larmes avec Antoine en quittant son tatami". I would translate as "other [viewers] shed tears with Antoine while those viewers were leaving 'their' ("son"? "leur"?) tatami."

Questions:

  1. What are some correct translations of "d’autres ont versé des larmes avec qu’Antoine Valois-Fortier en quittant son tatami"?
  2. Can you help me understand how "avec que" is used? (Perhaps, you can give me more example sentences that use "avec que", or explain how to grammatically structure my sentences when using "avec que"?)
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  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
    – Luke Sawczak
    Jul 23, 2021 at 2:14

2 Answers 2

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As already written in the comments, there is no reason to add que there.

However, this extra que does not make any difference to the pronunciation if, as is expected, the final c of avec blends into the start of que. That might explain why the writer didn't notice the mistake if they went over it too quickly.


Note that in the past, avec even used to be written avecque(s) (from Latin apud hoc).

Later, the final que was eroded, and even the final -c became silent, so at that stage a common pronunciation was avé. This pronunciation can still be heard in Provence.

The final -c was restored in modern French pronunciation.

Note: Deepl translation was not bad, here is a small correction:

Some of you were thrilled to watch Penny Oleksiak's gang pick up medals by the handful at the pool, others shed tears with Antoine Valois-Fortier when leaving his tatami with him, while others blasted1 with pride as they crossed the finish line with Andre de Grasse on the Olympic Stadium track.

The author suggests that the viewers share the emotions of the athletes by being virtually at their side on the sports fields.

References: Wiktionnaire, Littré, TLFi, Académie, Académie

1 Lambie's kind contribution

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  • For their to be a virtual presence the entire paragraph would have to suggest that. It does not. And why you even mention pronunciation for such an obvious mistake is beyond me. "when leaving his tatami with him" is simply not in the text. And exploded with pride is ridiculous in English. You get to leave a personal comment on my answer, then it's frozen. One ne prête qu'aux riches.
    – Lambie
    Jul 23, 2021 at 23:14
  • @Lambie Ta première affirmation est exagérée. Il n'est pas interdit à un auteur de faire évoluer son discours en cours de route. Elle impliquerait l'obligation pour tout texte d'être strictement cartésien et interdirait par exemple les envolées lyriques.
    – jlliagre
    Jul 24, 2021 at 10:48
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    Pourquoi est-ce que je mentionne la prononciation ? Pour expliquer pourquoi cette erreur a pu passer inaperçue suite à une relecture superficielle, exactement comme ta faute de grammaire dans For their to be.
    – jlliagre
    Jul 24, 2021 at 10:49
  • With him n'est pas dans le texte, mais je ne vais pas t'apprendre le rôle d'un pronom et avec André de Grasse est bien présent dans le texte.
    – jlliagre
    Jul 24, 2021 at 10:49
  • Exploded / blasted Ok, ce n'est pas idiomatique mais les significations de ces mots sont suffisamment proches pour que le sens soit compris. C'était une traduction littérale, un gallicisme si tu veux. Je le corrige. Comme je l'ai déjà écrit, je ne prétend pas maîtriser l'anglais et les corrections sont bienvenues.
    – jlliagre
    Jul 24, 2021 at 10:50
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The Original Machine Translation:

Some of you were thrilled to watch Penny Oleksiak's gang pick up medals by the handful at the pool, others shed tears with Antoine Valois-Fortier as he left his tatami, while others exploded with pride as they crossed the finish line with Andre de Grasse on the Olympic Stadium track.

of this French Canadian spoken text:

Certains d’entre vous ont vibré en regardant la bande à Penny Oleksiak ramasser les médailles à la poignée à la piscine, d’autres ont versé des larmes avec qu’Antoine Valois-Fortier [a mistake, could be a reversal] en quittant son tatami, alors que d’autres ont explosé de fierté en franchissant le fil d’arrivée avec Andre de Grasse sur la piste du stade olympique.

If this is spoken French, the ne could have been left out by a fast speaker or the automatic closed caption program could have missed it:

Certains d’entre vous ont vibré en regardant la bande à Penny Oleksiak ramasser les médailles à la poignée à la piscine, d’autres **[n']**ont versé des larmes qu’avec Antoine Valois-Fortier en quittant son tatami, alors que d’autres ont explosé de fierté en franchissant le fil d’arrivée avec Andre de Grasse sur la piste du stade olympique.

Edited translation: Some of you were thrilled when watching Penny Oleksiak's gang scoop up medals by the handful at the pool, while others had only tears for Antoine Valois-Fortier as he was leaving the mat, while others still were bursting with pride as they saw Andre de Grasse crossing the finish line on the Olympic Stadium track.

Please note: usually in French you get NE verb QUE, but sometimes the ne is left out in fast speech.

The very first verb implies spectators, so I have kept that idea while keeping the spectators off the mat and away from the finish line. As this is probably spoken language, there are some odd things in the flow of the French which would be true in any language coming from a commentator. One cleans up as one goes along translating in written form in cases like these.

The idea I think with the Fortier thing is this: les spectateurs ne pouvaient que verser des larmes en le voyant quitter son tatami.

In other words, the spectators were thrilled for the swimmers, could only cry for Fortier and again were very happy with/for André de Grasse.

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  • This is not a "French Canadian spoken text", the text is not from a sport's "commentator" and you don't understand who the spectateurs are.
    – jlliagre
    Jul 22, 2021 at 22:23
  • ici.tou.tv/le-reve-olympique It is Canadian and I can't access it from the states. It is a video with spoken text. It is from these people, who are Canadian. cbc.radio-canada.ca/fr/vision/gouvernance/… Maybe the speaker is French. But that changes nothing about the characteristics of spoken French.
    – Lambie
    Jul 22, 2021 at 22:56
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    It is Canadian French, but it is not spoken and it is not a video. It is the written introduction of a television program.
    – jlliagre
    Jul 22, 2021 at 23:02
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    2 (continued) ) from the sounds of it, it seems like even with written descriptions for a highly-trusted source like the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, errors still can occur in the writing. this does make it tricky for a French Language Learner!
    – silph
    Jul 22, 2021 at 23:16
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    Replacing en franchissant le fil d’arrivée avec André de Grasse by "as they saw Andre de Grasse crossing the finish line" (en voyant André de Grasse franchir le fil d'arrivée) might be easier to grasp for an English native speaker but is unfaithful to the author words.
    – jlliagre
    Jul 23, 2021 at 0:25

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