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What is a translation of the phrase "this is all about" in French?

For example:

This episode is all about finding a job.

meaning that this topic is (maybe not obviously) the actual topic of interest in this episode.

Stéphane Gimenez
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Wenqin Ye
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  • Not a site to translate ; you can use Linguee : http://www.linguee.fr/francais-anglais/search?source=anglais&query=This+episode+is+all+about+finding+a+job – Personne May 01 '15 at 09:08
  • Il manque l'état des recherches effectuées par le demandeur dans cette question. – P. O. May 07 '15 at 19:42

4 Answers4

7

French doesn't have an adverb that translates “all about” perfectly in this context. Instead, we would phrase the sentence a bit differently, expressing the idea of “about” and the connotation of “actual topic of interest” separately.

Cet épisode raconte fondamentalement une recherche d'emploi.

Fondamentalement carries the connotation that the job search is the core purpose which may or may not be immediately apparent. If you don't want to hint that the purpose may not be apparent, you can say

Le sujet principal de cet épisode est une recherche d'emploi.

You can give an exclusive nuance (which the English doesn't necessarily have) by translating it as if it was “is only [about]”. In this case combining “only” with “about” in French sounds clumsy so we'd tend to simply use the verb “is”.

Cet épisode n'est qu'une recherche d'emploi.

Gilles 'SO nous est hostile'
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    Le sens est préservé, mais registre de ces propositions est peut-être un peu trop formel. J'aurais tendance a modifier le dernier en « En gros, il s'agit d'une recherche d'emploi ». – Stéphane Gimenez May 01 '15 at 15:50
  • @StéphaneGimenez I'd use those sentences in everyday conversation. Maybe overusing “fondamentalement” is a scientist deformation? – Gilles 'SO nous est hostile' May 01 '15 at 15:54
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You can translate :

This episode is about finding a job.

by

Cet épisode est à propos d'une recherche d'emploi.

or, more generically :

Cet épisode est à propos de la recherche d'emploi.

Now, the "all" in "all about" can be added using "que" or "uniquement", like this :

Cet épisode est uniquement à propos d'une recherche d'emploi

or

Cet épisode n'est qu'à propos d'une recherche d'emploi.

I prefer the use of "uniquement", but both mean exactly the same.

EDIT : It seems that the expression is not about exclusivity like I first thought, so the suggestions above are not so good. I would give this better translation :

Dans cet épisode, il s'agit pour le personnage de trouver un emploi.

Guillaume Fache
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    No, this is not a correct translation. I think you interpreted the English expression literally, but it's an idiom. “X is all about Y” is not synonymous with “X is exclusively about Y”, it means that Y is the main topic or the main purpose of X. Iside's answer is a lot closer to the correct meaning. – Gilles 'SO nous est hostile' May 01 '15 at 15:34
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  • 1 for your last edit, because I agree that “Il s’agit de [plus infinitive]” is a good way to capture “it’s all about”/ “it all boils down to”/"the important point is" in French without further modification; but is the “pour le personnage” really required because, for me, it actually changes the meaning or at least makes it somewhat ambiguous? Wouldn’t “Dans cet épisode, il s’agit de [comment] trouver/[or recherchér] un emploi” be enough?
    • – Papa Poule May 01 '15 at 17:20
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    Yes, yours is perfectly good too. For the introduction of "personnage", I was just guessing that in this exemple, we are talking about a person searching for a job. But if we are talking about the abstact concept of looking for a job, yours is definitly better. – Guillaume Fache May 01 '15 at 17:28