Little help with a translation please.

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tim85a
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Joined: Sat Jul 03, 2010 1:23 pm

Little help with a translation please.

Post by tim85a »

I want to get a tattoo saying "I'll do anything because I love you", but I want it in Latin. I think I've got it right, but as its a tattoo and for ever, just want to double check. I worked it out as "facio quis quod amor tu"

Thanks for your help
Tim

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furrykef
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Re: Little help with a translation please.

Post by furrykef »

Ooh... to be honest, it's good thing you didn't get that tattoo yet. ^^; What you said is something like, "I do anybody because you love." The grammar isn't even close to correct ("facio" is present tense, not future; "amor" is a noun, not a verb, etc.); it looks like you just looked up words in a dictionary and translated it word for word. This is never a good way to translate anything (even for "easy" languages like Spanish!); you have to know the language's grammar.

My Latin is intermediate level and I'm still not confident enough in my ability to make a tattoo. So I'll give the following suggestion, but take it with a grain of salt because I certainly wouldn't tattoo it to my body without opinions from other speakers: "Faciam quidquam quia te amo."

But I have to ask... why is it so cool to have a tattoo in a language you don't understand? It seems to me that most of the intrigue comes from its incomprehensibility... in which case you might as well get "corned beef and cabbage" tattooed in a foreign language. I mean, how would you know the difference?

EDIT: By the way, you posted this to the wrong forum. This forum is for the book "Latin for Beginners". It should have been posted in the Open Forum or maybe Learning Latin.
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columbula
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Re: Little help with a translation please.

Post by columbula »

The phrase you made up is kinda strangely poetic on its own. Like, if you add in substantiveness "Who am I who does, because you are love". What does it even mean? I say just go with what you made up it's awesome.

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