Ils me ressemblent beaucoup.

Sentence Discussions French
#1
English Translation

They are very alike to me.

Should this be something more like: “Ils se ressemblent beaucoup à moi.“

The original sentence “Ils me ressemblent beaucoup“, doesn’t it mean, “They look a lot like me.“

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#2

Would your alternative be better as “Ils se ressemblent beaucoup pour moi.” ?

I agree with you that the French and English sentences don’t seem to match.

Let’s hope that a native French speaker can comment.

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#3

Yes, that’s exactly what it means.

Regarding the original English sentence, shouldn’t we insert a comma somewhere?

I mean, something like:

  • They are very alike, to me.
  • To me, they are very alike.
  • To me, they are very much alike.

To me, the last sentence is the most natural sounding. I don’t know what you guys think.

Anyway… If this is the meaning we are trying to convey, then @zzcguns’s literal translation would work.

I would probably switch it around: “Pour moi, ils se ressemblent beaucoup.”

Other options:

  • Ils se ressemblent beaucoup, selon moi.

  • Selon moi, ils se ressemblent beaucoup.

  • Je trouve qu’ils se ressemblent beaucoup.

selon moi, may be considered a bit formal.

The last sentence is the one furthest from the original, but I think it’s also the one you’re most likely to hear.

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#4

I agree that in English I would also put “to me” at the beginning of the sentence, and I also agree that you’re third English sentence is the most natural sounding (well, it is … “to me” :joy:).

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#6

That’s exactly what it means.

The original sentence is the French version, so whoever contributed the English [mis]translation made a mistake.
If I had to guess—This sentence could be correctly translated as “They look very similar to me” (okay fine that’s ambiguous, but one of its two possible meanings is the correct translation).
“Alike” is OFTEN a synonym for “similar”—but not this time, ha ha haw!—so somebody probably just thought she/he could swap out “similar” for “alike” and ended up with *They look very alike to me". Whoopsy.

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#7

https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/search?from=fra&query=Ils+me+ressemblent&to=eng

This is the original French version of the sentence and it looks like what Alewify said is a good guess. It started out with “looks like“ and got updated to “similar“ in a later translation, if I understand how Tatoeba works. The English translation is awkward. No one around here would say it that way.

This page talks about ressembler à and se ressembler and sorted out my confusion about the wording. As it turns out, this wording is a separate issue from the translation.

I would say “They look very much like me“.

Thanks for helping me sort this out.

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#8

Interesting discussion, thank you for the feedback.

After checking the tatoeba sentences, I think so too.

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#9

It is such a strange translation plus it isn’t something that people often say (unless maybe they are talking about a family resemblance?)

Even after Alewify messaged, I had to spend some time with it. I thought it was a great discussion and it helped me a lot, even if it didn’t look like me lol.