que: M谩s vale malo conocido que bueno por conocer. Es mejor vestir santos que desvestir borrachos. Please don't give me answers from online translators... They're on a list of expressions I have so answers that are a little different from the literal translation are good.|||M谩s vale malo conocido que bueno por conocer. It means that is better keep something (or someone) that you know well but is bad, rather than try something (or someone) that maybe is better but you don't know for sure. Es mejor vestir santos que desvestir borrachos. When a woman is single and it doesn't seam that she is not going to get married ever they say "se va a quedar para vestir santos". (she is going to stay to dress saints), so your sentence means that it is better to be single that to be married to a bad husband.|||Guys, you are ALL so wrong! It appears all of you just ran this through an online translator. See my answer for the correct reply. This is a terrible translation. Both of them are extremely incorrect. Report Abuse |||well these two are typical phrases that are used when you want to give like an advice. they are "sayings" I think is M谩s vale bueno conocido que malo por conocer it means that it worths more something that is knew as good than to know something bad that is unknown ... and the other.. Es mejor vestir santos que desvestir borrachos this is more common phrase when women dont want to get married or they want to spend their time for their own. its something like to say that they prefer to be nuns (to dress like a nun) than to undress drunk men I hope this help you... its little complicated to translate it exactly like it sounds =)|||M谩s vale malo conocido que bueno por conocer literally: It is better the bad you know than the good you don't know yet. It seems the English equivalent is: Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know. Es mejor vestir santos que desvestir borrachos. I didn't found any similar English idiom. "vestir santos" has almost the same meaning as "to be left on the shelf". The literal translation is: It is better to (be left to) dress saint images than to undress drunk men. It refers to aged, unmarried women, that usually expend their days in the church, caring for saint images.|||Both of these proverbs and their English translations can be found in the Oxford Spanish Dictionary 4th edition 2008. It's the best hardback dictionary out there; it's well worth the $100.00. Also, I have a close friend who's Mexican, extremely well educated and fluent in Spanish, English and Latin. He has heard them and says his grandmothers said them quite often. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise; these are the translations in English. The 1st one in English would be: Better the Hell/Devil you know, than the Hell/Devil you don't! You can say either Hell or Devil; depends on what you want to use. The 2nd one, is a variation of another Spanish proverb that's very similar. It's: Desvestir a un santo para vestir a otro. In English, you'd say "To rob Peter to pay Paul." So, based upon that, the 2nd one would be: It is better to pay Peter than to rob Paul. One has to be familiar with Spanish proverbs in order to translate them into English. You can rarely do it word for word and get the meaning of the proverb. These 2 are prime examples of that. The 2nd one especially is that way. It is not in any way about dressing statues of saints in the church with sacred clothing; it's not about single women avoiding lying down with naked drunks. Nothing like that at all. The language is extremely rich, beautiful and immense. I enjoy speaking Spanish so much more than my native tongue of English. I am bilingual in English and Spanish. I am studying accordion and traditional music from M茅xico. I am learning how to play Conjunto, Tejano, Tex-Mex and Norte帽o. Learning the lyrics to the songs is extremely useful and practical in order to maintain speaking skills and vocabulary 隆Qu茅 tenga un buen d铆a! Juan|||M谩s vale malo conocido que bueno por conocer. -- The tricky part here is the adjective "Bueno" which means good. In Spanish, we use "Bueno" for "good" and "Bien" for "well". The phrase is comparing knowledge of facts or people that are bad or disloyal to knowing new good things. So, it's better to know who is disloyal which you already know. The "Bueno" is actually necessary because it already be logical that knowing future bad would be in the same level. Anyway, this saying can help to give a person strength when being betrayed by someone. 1) It's better to know what kind of person you trusted than being fooled all your life, 2) no longer mistrusting that person and continue living with the doubt and/or 3) cutting it short before suffering any more losses. There can be more benefits for knowing who's who. Yet, prejudice can also come from being betrayed from many people belonging to the same affinity group. For example, the history channel created an investigation on Hitler stating many times where a Jewish person did something to him: made him lose his job, romanced a woman in his life and so on. Yet, this saying is used for personal context towards an individual not an affinity group. Es mejor vestir santos que desvestir borrachos. -- It's better to stay single than marry a drunk. Vestir santo is an activity done by Catholic people, though usually its the woman which is referred to as the one doing the activity. To "dress a saint" is to actually put clothing on a statue of a Jesus or one of his Saint, but we know the statue is just an illustration not really alive. Sometimes, a woman who has not married yet is told to watch out or she will "dress saints." There is another says with the phrase "dressing saints," but it has nothing to do with relationships.