A burnt child dreads the fire.
This sentence seems a poorly constructed translation of the English phrase, “Once burned, twice shy.” Why is “scottata” in feminine singular and why is the verb “fare” either in 2nd singular indicative or 2nd singular imperative? Is there a reason for this that I don’t see?Shouldn’t the whole construction be impersonal? (“Una volta si scotta, la seconda volta si fa più attenzione.” or better yet, “Una volta bruciati, due volte timidi.”)
These seem to be suggested equivalents:
Chi è scottato una volta, l’altra vi soffia su.
Cane scottato dall’acqua calda ha paura della fredda.
I do not think it is poorly constructed.
If you understand the first part as an ellipsis of the auxilliary verb for the perfect parallelism, then in Italian you have the choice to use the male or female form, and the female form here simply sounds better.
I read it simply as “Once burned, be more careful the second time”.
The more typical English phrase is ‘once bitten, twice shy’
Ehilà Judith. Esatto!