Hi thanks for looking at my query. I recently as a joke changed some writing on the board of a friends EAL (English as an Additional Language) classroom from English to German. She liked the idea, but using Google Translate resulted in an overly formal phrasing that made it seem more a demand than a suggestion or polite request.
So my ask, if you speak (or I guess write) another language I would love to request you take a moment to translate “Please stack chairs at the end of the day” into whichever language you can help me with, it should be a polite request though.
I’m really not sure what the composition of her class is but she is a fan of languages as a whole so even if it’s not a language that is represented in her class I am sure it will be a bit of fun and a talking point to figure it out.
If you have the time and the skills to help I really appreciate it, otherwise I appreciate you taking the time to read this post. Have a fantastic day.
Thank you, I should disclose that I am a Gen X Australian, we do self deprecation at a super advanced level. I absolutely get that language becomes so engrained that things just don’t sound/read as correct for reasons you would understand if you took the time to think about them, but you don’t really have to expend any effort to know it.
I promise I’m not being too hard on myself just accepting there’s things I don’t know and haven’t earnt a shortcut to bypass learning to understand.
Also, if you are adhressing the request to a group, it could be better to go with “Por favor apilen las sillas al finalizar el día”, plural
That’s a great point, thank you.