Can anyone help me translate a warning sign into Spanish?

March 19, 2016 3:06 PM

I have some flowers I would like to keep the gardeners from cutting, and so far telling them in person hasn't worked consistently, either because of language or turnover. I'd like to put up some signs near them in English and Spanish to make it clearer. So can anyone translate: "These [I plan to insert a picture or two] are flowers, please do not cut them back or spray weedkiller on them." If someone wants to be fancy and give translations of "heritage four o'clocks' and 'heartleaf ice plant' that I can put in for 'flowers', that would be keen, but flowers is fine.

(Yes, I know, iceplant isn't something I would personally plant, but someone did and it made a better ground cover than dead, poisoned grass, plus the local honeybees loved it.)

posted by tavella to Writing & Language (10 answers total)

I'll defer to a native speaker, but I'd write:

Estos son flores. [Gracias por] no cortar ni fumigar con herbicida.

This is a little simpler and more direct than your English, which I'd also suggest tightening to:

These are flowers. [Please] do not cut or spray with weed killer.

The please is optional in both cases.
posted by drlith at 3:15 PM on March 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Estas son flores. Por favor, no cortar ni fumigar.

Warning signs tend to be simple in Spanish. Now let me see what the Spanish name of those flowers is.
posted by Promethea at 4:26 PM on March 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

Looks like "ice plant" is maravilla, at least in Argentina and jalapa is 4 o'clocks.
posted by falsedmitri at 4:38 PM on March 19, 2016

The four o'clocks could be called Clavellinas or other names depending on the country. Ice plant refers to a few different species, some of which don't have names in Spanish.

I'm having a hard time coming up with a good translation for heritage. I don't know if this concept is used, I'm not into gardening, but I studied oenology and never heard it. We simply called non GMO products "libre de OGM".

So I would simplify that part and just say they're organic flowers "flores orgánicas".
posted by Promethea at 4:39 PM on March 19, 2016

Falsedimitri, I think you got that mixed up, maravilla is another name for the four o'clocks. Jalapa is part of the scientific name.
posted by Promethea at 4:43 PM on March 19, 2016

I would avoid using language at all. Put up a cheap, little push-in garden edging 'fence' (the kind that are 8-12" high. Attach a couple laminated pictures with an X'd out garden sprayer and an X'd out weed wacker. You can't guarantee that the yard folks can read or that they can read Spanish, but anybody can understand a pictograph.
posted by PorcineWithMe at 7:41 PM on March 19, 2016

Response by poster: You have a point there about literacy, PWM. I'm still going to put the wording on the sign, but I should add the pictures as well.

Thanks, everyone, especially Promethea. I could piece together a sign from my one year of spanish and a dictionary, but things like the brevity of Spanish language warning signs were exactly the thing I was looking for to make it more understandable.
posted by tavella at 8:56 PM on March 19, 2016

Favor de No Cortar Ni Fumigar
NO CORTAR
NO FUMIGAR

I'm pretty sure you don't even need to explain "these are flowers". All you need is to make sure the signs clearly indicate which plants are not to be touched. A photo would help, but I think tying a string around the ones you want ignored would be better.

You're assuming that the gardeners actually *care* about plants and would be sympathetic to an understandable explanation (if that was the case you wouldn't have a problem). I'm imagining people doing a job they don't have to think much about.

Also, illiteracy isn't black or white. A person can not be able to read sentences, but understand a sign that says "NO ________ ", even if it's just a visual recognition of the symbol NO. Don't worry about being polite - in Spanish signs are indeed very curt and to the point, and what might seem rude to an English speaker is actually very clear and matter-of-fact to a Spanish speaker.
posted by Locochona at 9:33 AM on March 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Fwiw, Locochona's text reads best to me, esp if the gardeners are from Mexico/Central America. The most common negative-request in those regions is absolutely "favor de no [infinitive]." Cute little signs in the areas of the flowers ought to do it. :-)
posted by migrantology at 5:11 PM on March 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Well, I do want to mention flowers, because one patch of them are around a bush, and it's fine if they trim the bush, in fact it needs it, but they keep whacking my only surviving patch of yellow four o'clocks, and these are descended from wild ones so I can't just go buy more seeds. Well, I could, but it wouldn't be the same, plus these are nice and tough and survive drought (and repeated whacking incidents.)
posted by tavella at 9:46 PM on March 20, 2016