Washing yourself the hands

in berges •  7 years ago 

Here’s another “employees must wash hands” sign:

What’s the problem here? Well, we would never phrase it like that in Spanish, and in this case this is purely idiomatic. The way it’s written, we would think employees wash other people’s hands. Even if we added a possessive adjective, it would still be strange in Spanish:

Employees must wash their hands.
Los empleados deben lavar sus manos.

The example above is perfectly grammatical, and yet we would never say that. For most personal care stuff we prefer reflexive verbs hands down. Here are some examples:

Screen Shot 2018-01-19 at 10.54.08 AM.png

We hope that was helpful!

Authors get paid when people like you upvote their post.
If you enjoyed what you read here, create your account today and start earning FREE STEEM!