How do I dismiss children to go to class?
Yesterday, it was my turn to read the scripture in church. Just before the reading, someone ran up to me and told me to dismiss the children to go to “Jane’s” class after I finished reading the scripture. I had to make the announcement quickly after the reading I had rehearsed several times. This is what I said:
Los niños de la clase de Jane pueden pasar a la clase ahora.
The children left for class, but is the sentence correct?
Here is some additonal context. Jane's class consists of English and Spanish speaking adolescent children. I made the announcement first in English saying "the children in Jane's class can go to class now" then in Spanish using the sentence above. Some of the parents of the children do not speak English, so I wanted to communicate with them also.
The Spanish sentence sounds like it has too many articles. The English sentence sounds clumsy, too, but it is all I could think of at the time.
If this happens again, I think I'll let Jane dismiss the children.
3 Answers
If this clase is right next door to where the children were, then Pasar would be OK. However since you always need to be clear when telling children what to do, I would have said "Los niños de la clase de Jane deben de irse ahora mismo para asistir a clase."
What you said doesn´t seem technically wrong, but maybe a little unusual. Were all the children from Jane's class or only a few? Also were they English speakers or Spanish speakers? If all the children were from Jane´s class, you could always have said: Niños, vamanos a la clase de Jane ahorita or if from South America, niños, vayanse a la clase de Jane ya mismo
I don't know if it's correct or not, but congratulations for getting your message across.
