Indeed, although I think the French occasionally shorten that to "ça fait longtemps" or something... I may be wrong, I may be thinking of German. :confused:

Reply 4

Carl

14

No, the French can and do say "ca fait longtemps", but it's not really suitable for written communication.

Reply 5

BovineBeast

Carl

No, the French can and do say "ca fait longtemps", but it's not really suitable for written communication.

Well, nor's "long time no see", formally.

Reply 6

Carl

14

Yeah, but you can use long time no see in an informal letter, I'd only write ca fait longtemps in a text message. I'd write the whole thing in a letter or email.

Reply 7

mongoose

5

Would somebody write 'long time no see' in a letter though? I thought it was more a feature of face-to-face discourse than the written word, formal or informal. Incidentally, the expression 'long time no see' originated from Chinese.

Reply 8

generalebriety

16

mongoose

Would somebody write 'long time no see' in a letter though? I thought it was more a feature of face-to-face discourse than the written word, formal or informal. Incidentally, the expression 'long time no see' originated from Chinese.

Depends who the letter was to. I would, happily, as long as it wasn't to some business - in which case I wouldn't be writing "long time no see" anyway. In fact I can't really envisage a situation where I wouldn't write it in a letter if it was true... think about it, if it's someone you hardly know then you would only have met them recently, if it's a business you can't be sure the letter will get to the person you want, and if it's someone you know fairly well but haven't seen for a long time then you won't be writing incredibly formally.

Reply 9

generalebriety

16

Ah - and the German is "lange nicht mehr geredet". Knew it was floating around in my brain somewhere.

Reply 10

Dez

20

Why would you write "long time no see" in a letter? That makes no sense at all...

Reply 11

generalebriety

16

Dez

Why would you write "long time no see" in a letter? That makes no sense at all...

Err. Why wouldn't you? You might not have seen them for a long time. :p:

Reply 12

Dez

20

Unless you deliver the letter face-to-face, you won't see them anyway.

Reply 13

generalebriety

16

Dez

Unless you deliver the letter face-to-face, you won't see them anyway.

No. But you still might not have seen them for a long time. So "long time no see" would be true. :p:

Reply 14

candystrippa

OP

2

well i just wanted to write "long time no see" in an MSN conversation. thats fine, isnt it? like as in "see" the person online

Reply 15

generalebriety

16

candystrippa

well i just wanted to write "long time no see" in an MSN conversation. thats fine, isnt it? like as in "see" the person online

Course it's fine, Dez is just being pedantic. :p:

Maybe "...qu'on s'est parlé" if it bothers you.

Reply 16

quintsy

17

I think it's perfectly acceptable to say "long time no see" in English even if you're not saying it face to face, and really "seeing" them.

It's like: "I haven't seen you for ages" could either mean:

a) You're seeing the person when you make the comment; but hadn't seen them for a long time before that (i.e. in a situation where you're greeting a friend in the street)
b) You haven't seen the person for a long time; and you still aren't seeing them when you make the comment (so to someone on the phone, perhaps indicating you should see each other soon).

That probably made no sense whatsoever. :smile: