Hi everybody,
I'm Ren from Rome, living in Ireland for 12 years now, recently moved to Wicklow.
I've joined the forum because I need a translation for a friends of mine.
He's Italian as well and comes to visit me every year and wants a tattoo of a sentence in irish.
Translating litteraly from italian would be: do not let anybody drown you.
In italian we'd use the word sink or founder.
I don't really like it and I'm sure there's some idiom or saying that might express better what he means.
Basically he needs to underline the fact that in the past he allowed someone to mess with his life without doing anything.
Thanks very much, Ren

Ná lig d'éinne tú a bhá would be a literal translation. It can work in Irish as is, but I would wait around and see if there a more idiomatic version. Like I said though, I think the literal translation would work if need be.

Wait for more.

Thanks Gumbi.
My friend might be happy with the literal translation, it's me that suggest something more, how to say, profound...

Yeah, bá is "sink, founder" as well as drown.

I'm inclined to lenite the tú here myself

Ná lig d'éinne thú a bhá.

but it is optional. (See here: viewtopic.php?f=28&t=3596)

I wonder if the automomous imperative would also work:

Ná báitear thú. "Don't be drowned."

Await further input ...

_________________
[hr]Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher[/hr]
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).