They'll probably get the actual translation from someone else (maybe the person who sent it?), and then when they confront Shannon, she'll be all, "I told you I went to France to drink, not study!"

"I'm all alone" would have been "Je suis toute seule" which is pretty different from anything in the message.

I had to listen to it many times to be sure of the "keys" and the "black rock" lines. I then googled those lines to confirm what I heard and that seems to be the consensus of the other French posters I found.

Il est dehors. Il est dehors et Brennan a pris les clés.

OK. This part about the keys gives me total chills on the spine. Especially now that I'm imagining this being said by the eerie disembodied voice again.

Was the part about the black rock similar-sounding to the French for "I'm all alone"?

Hmm, my French is rusty, but I don't think so. "I'm all alone now" would be something like "Je suis toute seule maintenant," which doesn't sound anything like "Je vais essayer d'aller jusqu'au rocher noir."

ETA: x-posty!

Cereal:

From an interview with Matthew Fox: [link]

Casting Fox in the lead entailed a considerable twist of fate. He came in to audition for the role of the conniving Sawyer, a part that eventually went to Josh Holloway.

Dude. I CANNOT see MF as Sawyer. Not at all.

Also, an earlier interview with Josh Holloway (no future ep spoiler that I can see): [link]

It's so funny because at the beginning of the pilot, I'm loving the way these guys work. J.J. Abrams and Damon (Lindelof) came sneaking into my trailer in the rain and they're like, 'This is what's in the letter. Don't tell a soul.' You're like, 'Oh, my God, that changes everything!'

They do that. They come in and give you just a little information. It's kind of like we're on a need-to-know basis, so I didn't even reveal it to anyone in the cast.

Ha. That's kind of cute. I like the idea of only the character himself/herself knowing his/her own backstory and the rest of the cast being in the dark.

Ha. That's kind of cute. I like the idea of only the character himself/herself knowing his/her own backstory and the rest of the cast being in the dark.

Me too. That's great, and totally as it should be, because it allows him to know that when he's acting. Otherwise, you get situations like Alias S3, where Melissa George clearly has no idea she's evil for the first half, so her actions make no sense in retrospect.

Thank you for the translation, Megan!

Shannon's French isn't that good, she's just winging the translation

Well, she was forced into trying to translate. She said her French wasn't any good.

Oh lord, I can't believe I'm defending SnickerBitch.

I like the idea of only the character himself/herself knowing his/her own backstory and the rest of the cast being in the dark.

That's awesome. Now I want to go interrogate the other cast members to see what they know. Without, you know, bamboo or anything.

Oh, yeah, and the translation is great. I love that there's so much else there that needs explored. It's way more interesting than, "I'm all alone." Wonder if Shannon just botched it, or why she would deliberately misinterpret, even after being pushed into translating?

Just saw a promo for Letterman that said Evangeline Lilly will be on tonight.

If she did actually know what the transmission was saying, she likely would've told them it said "I'm alone" instead of the more detailed acutal translation because she wanted to stay on the beach for rescue-which at the time she was sure was imminent. "I'm going to try to make it to the black rock" and "Whassisface has the keys" turns the transmission into a mystery that might have to be solved taking the doctor, and the guy with the tech skills away. Being selfish, she probably wouldn't have wanted them wasting their time on anything but getting her off the island.