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.
I’m super grateful for the explanation, does it make sense that I lack an adequate frame of reference for this? I did Latin many years ago, poorly. Since then it’s been primarily English with a touch of guidebook Japanese phrases. I just don’t have the mental agility to make the connections. But I am curious and when I am no longer working shift work I might delve into some language learning to improve the neural elasticity.
It does, it’s a very weird thing if you’re not used to it, you’re not dumb or anything. I recognize it’s a completely alien concept, there is no analogue in English, and it stacks on top of the singular and plural "you"s being different and having gendered words making it extra difficult to fully conjugate a sentence for speakers of languages that lack those features. But 90% of the time the meaning gets across anyway and we don’t care :) (unless you’re French /j)