--- In Pali@..., Piya Tan <libris@...> wrote:

> Derek,
>
> It's all right to be meticulous about grammar at an early stage of

learning Pali. But

> generally in due course, it is "translation" that take priority

over "transciption"

> or "transliteration" so that we don't end up with "translationese"

instead of

> English. So while it is useful to know whether a word is optative

or imperative,

> etc., it is the sense that we ultimately want to carry into the

English. The grammar

> is secondary and idiomatic.

Piya,

I think the most important thing for me right now is to get down the
basics. For example, in that passage we were just looking at, I
didn't know until Peter told me that saa referred to the rope.
Without knowing that, I could never produce an accurate translation.

Derek.