# bihisan



## zhonglin

Hi,

I need some help to see if the below sentences are correct;

Damitan mo ang iyong anak - dress your child
Palitan mo ng damit ang iyong anak ng pambahay - change your child's clothes into house clothing (pambahay) 

Thank you in advance.


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## DotterKat

zhonglin said:


> Hi,
> 
> I need some help to see if the sentences below are correct;
> 
> 1) Damitan mo ang iyong anak - Dress (up) your child.
> 2) Palitan mo ng damit ang iyong anak ng pambahay - change your child's clothes into house clothing (pambahay)
> 
> Thank you in advance.



The second sentence is syntactically flawed. It should be:

_Palitan mo ng damit na pambahay ang iyong anak._

You will run into semantic difficulties (as in "_Change your child into_....") if you faithfully translate the sentence above into English. The closest acceptable translation would be something like:

_Put some house clothes on your child._

Though the sentence above is syntactically correct, it is obviously semantically flawed. Which brings us to a truth about translations, that it is of far greater significance to translate whole thoughts or intentions rather than individual words. Hence the importance of context.

The best way to "translate" the idea of your Tagalog text and make it sound colloquial would be something like:

_Put your child in some comfortable clothes so he can run around and play._


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## zhonglin

DotterKat said:


> The second sentence is syntactically flawed. It should be:
> 
> _Palitan mo ng damit na pambahay ang iyong anak._
> 
> You will run into semantic difficulties (as in "_Change your child into_....") if you faithfully translate the sentence above into English. The closest acceptable translation would be something like:
> 
> _Put some house clothes on your child._
> 
> Though the sentence above is syntactically correct, it is obviously semantically flawed. Which brings us to a truth about translations, that it is of far greater significance to translate whole thoughts or intentions rather than individual words. Hence the importance of context.
> 
> The best way to "translate" the idea of your Tagalog text and make it sound colloquial would be something like:
> 
> _Put your child in some comfortable clothes so he can run around and play._



Thanks for your help as I'm improving my Tagalog and English at the same time. 

_Put your child in some comfortable clothes so he can run around and play. This sounds very good but quite difficult, is this the most common way to say this idea in AE? is there other easy way to say it?   _


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