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Je n'arrive pas à trouver un bonne traduction pour le mot fun. J'ai trouvé beaucoup de gens disant le mot amusant mais je pense que celui-ci est plus proche de amusing (il y a un certain humour dans les situations où on dit amusing).

En français, comment puis-je dire fun ?

Sa fête était fun.

Apprendre le français est fun.

Elle est fun.

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4 Answers4

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C'est un cas où aucune traduction exacte ou définitive n'est possible, en tout cas aucun mot français unique ne traduit tous les sens de l'anglais fun.

Il sera traduit différemment selon le contexte : drôle, marrant, sympa, rigolo, ... voire peut-être plus rarement amusant (plus formel, usage en baisse), délire (utilisé comme adjectif, registre familier), etc.

Mais souvent le mot n'est pas vraiment traduisible seul :

We had a lot of fun at this party!

pourrait donner, selon les préférences des uns ou des autres :

On s'est bien éclatés à cette fête !

On a bien déliré à cette teuf !

On s'est bien marrés à cette chouille !

ici c'est to have fun qui forme une unité de sens, donc on ne retrouve pas un équivalent du mot fun pris séparément. C'est un cas qu'on retrouve souvent dans d'autres usages de fun.

Enfin, il faut ajouter que le terme (anglais) a été assez largement réapproprié par le français, et qu'on l'entend énormément tel quel dans des phrases françaises.

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Romain Valeri
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  • Merci @Romain ! Vous êtes en train de m'aider beaucoup ! Je suis content de savoir que je peux utiliser fun sans traduction en Français :) J'ai cherché les mots que vous avez dit et éclater = burst|explode, teuf = chug (!), marrés = blast, chouille = partying like there's no tomorrow (loved this one!) - donc je pense que ils ne sont pas formel (ils sont argots). J'ai un examen de français en juillet et je pense que je ne dois pas utiliser ces expressions. Est-ce correct ou sont-ils socialment acceptable ? –  Jun 28 '14 at 14:28
  • Oui, j'aurais pu le préciser c'est vrai : les trois exemples que j'ai donnés pour traduire We had a lot of fun at this party sont sur le registre familier, à réserver à ses amis et connaissances proches. La meilleure manière de savoir ce qui peut se dire dans un groupe, c'est de d'écouter ses membres s'exprimer. Car les termes "à la mode" sont parfois très vite dépassés par d'autres, et les termes "jeunes" mais en réalité un peu vieillis produisent l'effet contraire à celui recherché : ça semblera artificiel et un peu ridicule. – Romain Valeri Jun 28 '14 at 16:41
  • @cldjr Pour un examen, mon vieil Harraps's suggère fun : amusement, gaieté, plaisanterie ; to have fun : s'amuser, se divertir ; le tout est complété par d'autres expressions idiomatiques. Si le contexte est (très) soutenu, il faudra s'en contenter, sinon les autres réponses sont acceptables selon leur contexte (à part la traduction de fête par chouille, qui semble être une expression très régionale) – Personne Jun 29 '14 at 20:02
  • @cldjr pour l'utiliser comme adjectif : La fête était amusante, divertissante ; les définitions de amusant (http://www.linternaute.com/dictionnaire/fr/definition/amusant/ ) sont très nombreuses, mais renvoient chacune à un contexte, à un usage particulier qui pourrait correspondre à une traduction de fun avec des exemples dans http://www.linguee.fr/francais-anglais/search?source=auto&query=fun – Personne Jun 29 '14 at 20:09
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À noter qu'au Québec on dit « C'est le fun » et non « C'est fun ».

Exemple :

Cette soirée était le fun.

Plutôt que :

cette soirée était fun.

C'était un petit funny fact.

None
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Hedyuigirl
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  • Sorry for the tardy comment & upvote, but +1 for making the only allusion so far to the fact that “fun” is first & foremost a noun in both English and French, and as such, to the extent that articles modifying nouns are generally not omitted in French, “Cette soirée était le fun.” (it's irrelevant, but I usually hear/say “Cette soirée était DU fun.”) is the most, if not only correct form to use, regardless of where in Francophonia one lives and speaks. – Papa Poule Jun 11 '15 at 16:06
  • @PapaPoule Definitely not in France. Call “fun” an adjective if it makes you feel better but Cette soirée du fun* or Cette soirée était le fun* just aren't idiomatic. Cette soirée était fun is the only actual spoken French use you will encounter in France. (+1 for the info on Quebec use). – Relaxed Aug 31 '19 at 08:16
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None of the alternatives mentioned by @Romain mean fun: drôle, marrant, sympa, rigolo. They mean funny, except for sympa, which means nice or similar.

The French word that typically corresponds to the English word fun is amusant. And no, that does not mean amusing (un faux ami).

However, as @Romain pointed out, you must not expect to find a single French word that corresponds best to every use of fun. In other words, it is a mistake to try to translate words one-to-one, with no attention to the context. Typically you can use amusant for fun, but it is not always the best translation.

@Romain also correctly pointed out that fun has entered French, as a loan word. However, as is typical for loan words, the meaning of fun in French cannot correspond exactly and always to the meaning of fun in English.

Kareen
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Drew
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  • (+1) Very good remark about loan words rarely being perfect translations. That's counter-intuitive but very true. On another point, fun and funny have indeed different meanings, but don't you think there's some part of "meaning overlap" (sorry if this expression sounds strange I made it up to try to express my point) between the two? ...partly because many people have fun with.... funny things. – Romain Valeri Jun 28 '14 at 09:56
  • @RomainVALERI: Yes, I do think there is overlap between fun and funny. In particular, funny things often provide for fun experiences. And I hesitated to say that, for instance, drole is unrelated to fun. Still, I think the overall message for native French speakers is that fun is not the same as funny. Fun is about having a good time, or is about play. It does not necessarily have anything to do with something that is funny. We had fun at dinner last night, even though nothing funny transpired. We had fun running that marathon, or dancing..., but no one was laughing. – Drew Jun 28 '14 at 15:47
  • @Drew “Sympa” does not mean “funny” and can certainly mean “fun”. “Amusant” is OK too but in my opinion it's not very different from “marrant” (so probably closer to amusing than you suggest) and not better than “sympa”. – Relaxed Jun 28 '14 at 22:47
  • @Relaxed: I did not say that sympa means funny. On the contrary, I said it means nice (pleasant, pleasing). And I maintain that if you want to say that something is fun then you are far better off in general using amusant than you are using sympa. And as I said, there might well not be a single French word, including amusant, that fits fun (or funny, for that matter) in all contexts. Certainly (IMHO), neither sympa nor marrant does. – Drew Jun 29 '14 at 20:35
  • @Drew No but you did write that none of the alternatives mentioned by Romain means “fun” although he did mention both “amusant” and “sympa”, which are pretty close. “Amusant” is not bad but it's not much better than “marrant” if you want to avoid suggesting that something is “funny” (which is not to say that “marrant” is a good translation or that any of these words would fit in all contexts!). – Relaxed Jun 29 '14 at 21:00
  • I think “sympa” is a bit better in this regard and can mean “fun” nowadays (it also means “nice” when talking about a person but that's now a distinct meaning IMO). It would be an excellent fit in your earlier example: “le dîner d'hier était sympa”, whereas “amusant” would not. “Sympa” suffers from another problem: it's very casual and not as common as “fun” is in English so it's indeed difficult to use appropriately. I don't disagree with the rest. – Relaxed Jun 29 '14 at 21:01
  • @Relaxed: Romain mentioned amusant by way of contrast to the others he cited in bold, saying that it perhaps means fun more rarely. I disagreed - it means fun more often than the others. And I said that sympa, unlike the others Romain cited (in bold), does not mean funny. – Drew Jun 29 '14 at 21:15
  • @Drew No I believe that what he meant is that it has become rarer (because it feels very formal). I know (and acknowledged) that you did specify later in your answer that sympa does not mean funny but I still think that your first sentence is a bit unfair and that “amusant” suffers from the same problems than “marrant”, “drôle” or “rigolo”. – Relaxed Jun 29 '14 at 21:17
  • @Relaxed: I agree that one can find contexts where sympa means fun - as in the example you cite. It fits less well when one really means *FUN!. To me, sympa* is pretty mild when it comes to fun. – Drew Jun 29 '14 at 21:20
  • @Drew That's also true but that's also the case with all the suggestions (including my own). Incidentally, “amusant” is something I could also use to mean “Mmm, that's odd”. – Relaxed Jun 29 '14 at 21:22
  • Maybe, the only way to be really enthusiastic about something like a dinner would be “j'ai beaucoup aimé le dîner”, “j'ai passé un bon moment” ou “j'ai été très content de […]”. “Je me suis bien amusé” sounds either childish/dated or ironic (I had fun at the expense of others), “le dîner était amusant” is even more ironic and wouldn't be taken as praise. – Relaxed Jun 29 '14 at 21:28
  • @Relaxed: Agreed. This is also likely one of the reasons that fun in French cannot be expected to cover fun in English: Many French speakers will not be familiar with the different uses of English fun, so will not lend it such meanings in French. – Drew Jun 29 '14 at 21:29
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Les suggestions de Romain Valeri sont bonnes mais voici quelques propositions supplémentaires, pour éviter la confusion entre fun et funny (du moins formel au plus formel):

  • Sympa
  • Agréable
  • Plaisant
  • Divertissant

Ces mots sont cependant nettement moins courants que fun en anglais et peuvent être délicats à employer.

Relaxed
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