Glossary entry (derived from question below)
French term or phrase:
peut se passer de (+ group of people/living beings)
English translation:
could do without (someone)
French term
peut se passer de (+ group of people/living beings)
Some examples:
1) Selon cette supposition, il y a quelque chose en Dieu qui n'est pas digne de Dieu, puisque Dieu peut s'en passer, comme il peut se passer des créatures.
2) Ainsi, le roi d'Espagne pourrait se passer des grands banquiers, accusés de le ruiner ...
3) Si la connerie était de l'essence, on pourrait se passer des Arabes. [No offence intended!]
4) Celui qui croit qu'il peut se passer des autres se trompe, et celui qui croit que les autres ne peuvent pas se passer de lui se trompe encore plus = "Anyone who believes they know what other people are thinking is kidding themselves ..."?
TIA
| 4 +6 | could do without (someone) |
Jane F
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Jul 15, 2013 20:02: Yolanda Broad changed "Level" from "PRO" to "Non-PRO"
Jul 15, 2013 20:02: Yolanda Broad changed "Term asked" from "peut se passer (+ group of people/living beings)" to "peut se passer de (+ group of people/living beings)"
Jul 15, 2013 20:10: writeaway changed "Field" from "Art/Literary" to "Other" , "Field (specific)" from "Other" to "General / Conversation / Greetings / Letters"
Jul 17, 2013 05:56: Jane F Created KOG entry
Non-PRO (3): Tony M, philgoddard, Yolanda Broad
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Proposed translations
could do without (someone)
| agree |
Tony M
: Yes, fits pretty well in all those examples
1 min
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thanks Tony
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| agree |
Simon Mac
: Yes, se passer de qqch/qqn - to do without sth/so
1 min
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thanks Simon
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| agree |
Beatriz Ramírez de Haro
2 mins
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thanks Beatriz
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| agree |
Kévin Bernier
8 mins
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thanks Kévin
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| agree |
Nikki Scott-Despaigne
: "can" do without, not "could" to respect the tense of the original
3 hrs
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thanks Nikki
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| agree |
Wolf Draeger
: Or doesn't/don't need.
1 day 17 mins
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Discussion
It looks as if you may be confusing 2 quite distinct structures here.
1) Il se passe qq chose = something's happening / going on etc. — it's just an impersonal construction from 'se passer' = to happen, occur, etc. the fact that it occurs in collocation with 'des' in the two examples you cite is purely fortuitous — though the impersonal construction is indeed likely to be used with the partitive 'des'
2) 'se passer de quelque chose' means as Jane says 'to do/go without sthg' — here the 'de' (or 'des', 'en', etc.) is an integral part of the expression.
I hope that helps clarify things a bit.