Thank you everyone. I find the examples given below, by Gunnar, especially helpful and will use them to refer to. I can use such examples as templates I think.

My next questions is regarding translating this sentence which appears on page 1 under section 2 . Naha"m, bhikkhave, anna"m ekadhamma"m pi samanupassaami ya"m eva"m adanta"m, agutta"m, arakkhita"m, asamvuta"m, mahato anatthaaya samvattatiti yathayida"m, bhikkhave, citta"m.

What I get is this: Oh Bhikkhus, again, I perceive not, other single thing which thus untamed , unguarded, unwatched, unrestrained, leads to his great disadvantage Oh Bhikkhus, namely mind.

On page 9 the book reads na=aha"m = not I and then below that
it reads naha"m ...............samanupassaami = I do not perceive.
I get the samanupassaa = perceive, mi= I and nah"m = not I .
I am having a hard time understanding how you know to add "do" to the not I.

If you can help me to understand this and any other mistakes I have made above I would appreciate it.

thanks,
Dipa
Gunnar Gällmo <gunnargallmo@...> wrote: --- gdbedell <gdbedell@...> skrev:

> (ii) The English word 'to' is called a
> preposition. It indicates the the goal or
> destination of
> motion. Pali also has prepositions, but this
> particular meaning does not require one.

Mainly because Pali has eight cases, while English has
only two; so often English makes use of prepositions
when Pali uses the different cases; e. g.

"a village" or "the village": gaamo

"to the village": gaama"m

"in the village": gaame

"from the village": gaamaa

"of the village", or "the village's": gaamassa

> You should not expect to be able to translate any
> language word for word into another.

Actually, the basic unit of a language is not the word
but the phrase; this is especially clear when
translating between languages with very different
grammatical structures, such as Pali and English. (It
must have been even worse for the poor chaps who
started translating Sanskrit sutras into Chinese.)

Gunnar




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http://www.geocities.com/sisterdipa/index.html
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sutta.html
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/

Kalamas, when you yourselves know: 'These things are good; these things are not blamable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,' enter on and abide in them. AN 3.65

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