how to modify language in a child theme

I have purchased a theme, and have created a child theme.

In the website’s sidebar is a search form, with a default placeholder text I would like to change.

The text for this placeholder is located in the parent theme’s /parent-theme/language/default.po.

I made a copy of this file as /child-theme/language/default.po, and modified the text concerned, however, the modfication does not show up on the front end.

What do I need to do to alter the text generated from the parent theme’s default.po?

Thanks.

I don’t remember doing it in practice, but from quick look at documentation there is a load_child_theme_textdomain() function for precisely that.

Once you use it with your copy of translation (note that timing and such, as per documentation) your changes should override parent theme’s version.