Gearóid wrote:
So this one isn't for me but rather for one of my students (I'm an ESL teacher).
She is looking to get a tattoo in Irish of something equivalent to:
'Water it so it grows healthy'
(The 'it' in this instance being a plant).
For fear that she would go with a less reliable resource I wanted to check with you folks here.
I can ask her for more specifics if the phrase doesn't make sense or needs more explaining. I'd also like to ask if there's a seanfhocal about watering plants that I could suggest to her instead, as it seems that the sentiment rather than the phrasing is more important to her.
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer and thanks also for the long-running generosity of this community. Táim an-bhuíoch díobh as bhur gcuidiú.
For a literal translation:
Cuir uisce air, i dtreo go bhfásfaidh sé.Water it, so that it will grow.
If it's meant to be a poetic way to encourage nurturing young people as they grow up, there's this traditional proverb:
Mol an óige agus tiocfaidh [sí/siad].
Praise the young and they will blossom ["come along'].
I suppose you could combine the two and have:
Cuir uisce air, i dtreo go dtiocfaidh sé.Water it, so that it will come along.
Edited to update it per the discussion below.