Translation (For a tattoo)
¡Buenos dias! :D
Well to make a long story short, I'd like to get a tattoo as an honor of my grandpa who died 2 months ago.
I was thinking of getting one of his favorite phrases tattooed on me. It goes something like this:
"To appreciate the sun, you gotta know what rain is".
I would like the tattoo in Spanish, because I've grown fond of the language 
Even though I'm good at Spanish, I'm not a native speaker, but I've tried to translate it the best I've could:
Para apreciar el sol, tienes que saber qué la lluvia es.
I would appreciate if there was a native speaker who could give me a correct translation (if my own translation turns out to be wrong) !
¡Gracias!
6 Answers
I am a native speaker, but it's a little bit tricky for me to find a good transaltion. A litaral one would be:
Para apreciar el sol, primero tienes que saber qué es la lluvia (You were very close!)
But I think this phrase miss a lot of the charm of the original.
Annierats did a great job. Maybe "disfrutar" (enjoy) would be better than "apreciar".
I'm gonna think another solution meanwhile.
This is from a native speaker in the north of Mexico:
"Para apreciar el sol, tienes que conocer la lluvia"
Para disfrutar del sol hay que conocer a la lluvia. ( I'm not a native, wait for further answers before making irrevocable damage to your own skin..)
Native speaker over here, I would translate it as follows:
"Para apreciar el sol, tienes que saber lo que la lluvia es" that's almost a literal translation.
But you could play with a few words without changing the meaning of it.
"Para disfrutar el sol, tienes que conocer la lluvia" "Para disfrutar el sol, tienes que saber lo que la lluvia es" "Para apreciar el sol, tienes que conocer la lluvia"
There are a lot of combinations, but I personally prefer the first one.
Thanks for the inputs guys !
Honor your Grandfather with your mind and spirit.Honor his memory in the manner you live your life. Forget the tattoo. There is no honor gained .
