"It will set your mind stress free if you {take/have} some sun bath."

Question

Out of these two sentences, which is correct and why?

1. It will set your mind stress free if you have some sun bath.

2. It will set your mind stress free if you take some sun bath.

Is there any other easy sentence to describe the situation?

Answer 1

Neither of those sentences are idiomatic English. There are three things that sound wrong to my ear in both of them.

1) the phrase "set your mind" isn't a usual construction for what you mean.

"Set your mind" is normally used as part of the phrase "Set your mind to the task", which means "to apply yourself diligently". It's never used to mean to put your mind into a new state, which seems to be what you mean.

Are more idiomatic way to say what you mean would focus on the "stress" and not the "mind". So something like, "it will ease your stress to", or less formally "It will help you de-stress to"

2) "sun bath" is ambiguous. I can't tell if you mean sunbathe (i.e. lay out in the sun to tan) or "go to a tanning salon" (literally get in a machine like a bath, which covers you with sun.)

Any phrase that ends in "bath" in English usually means to put something into a tub. For example you can give an electronic circuit board an "acid bath", where you put it into a tub of acid. So the phrase "Sun Bath" sounds like you're getting into a tub of Sun. Which can't be what you mean.

The more idiomatic phrase would be sunbathe.

Note that sunbathe is a verb not a noun, so you shouldn't need to worry about either having it or taking it.

3) The word 'some', doesn't belong in this sentence. You're only taking one set of sunbathing. So it's not ambiguous as to whether you're taking some of it, or all of it. So you don't need to use the word some to distinguish that.

Putting that all together, a better sentence might be:

"It will ease your stress to sunbathe a bit."

Answer 2

When in Rome (Do as the Romans do).

In BE you have a bath, whereas in AE you take a bath.

As for taking/having a sunbath, it's very controversial. Some people say it's absolutely wrong to use have/take with a sunbath as it's not a noun, some contend that it's acceptable and common in AE. It's listed as a noun in The Free Dictionary.

However, it's undoubtedly acceptable if we say I am going to sunbathe, I do some sunbathing in the morning, etc.

Answer 3

I can't speak for American English, but for British English:

• 'Have a bath' is idiomatic.
• 'Take a bath' is probably idiomatic, but may sound a little American.
• Neither 'Have a sun bath' or 'Take a sun bath' is idiomatic.

The root problem is that though we use 'sunbathe' as a verb (always one word I believe), we don't say 'sun bath'. I'd say ... 'if you sunbathe'.

Additional problem: 'It will set your mind stress free' is not idiomatic in British English nor in American English. In British English I'd say 'It will make you less stressed'.