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I am working on chapter 7 and have a question about one of the english to latin translations....practice and review #13 page 46.

It says: After bad times true virtue and much labor will help the state.

My attempt: Post temporibus malis virtus vera et labor multus civitatem adiuvabunt.

My question is mainly with the phrase "After bad times". I chose to use the ablative case since it was a preposition but the answer key uses the nominative or accusitive (I am not sure which) "-a" ending (tempora mala). I don't understand why this is. I would appreciate if someone could help me out.

Rhuiden

Rhuiden wrote: My question is mainly with the phrase "After bad times". I chose to use the ablative case since it was a preposition but the answer key uses the nominative or accusitive (I am not sure which) "-a" ending (tempora mala). I don't understand why this is. I would appreciate if someone could help me out.

salue, Rhuiden!

some prepositions take the accusative case only, like ante ("before"), circum ("around") and per ("through"). post is one of those prepositions, so it should take the accusative.

uale.

some prepositions take the accusative case only, like ante ("before"), circum ("around") and per ("through"). post is one of those prepositions, so it should take the accusative.

Not quite.

Ante and post can be used as prepositions governing the accusative - e.g. Ante decem annos or post tres dies.

They can be also be used as adverbs with an ablative measure of difference (which is what Rhuiden has used):

Tribus ante diebus
Decem post annis

Ante and post, in this usage, should never come first. I imagine this use would only be acceptable where the phrase in the ablative makes some sense as a measure. Three days is a measure, but bad times probably isn't. I'm not certain about the point of grammar involved here. I'll have to look it up.

Turpissime, I know post and ante can be used as adverbs, but I was talking only about the prepositions ante and post.
I've never seen wheelock's Latin but I believe it doesn't teach ablative "measure of difference" in chapter 7 since not even M&F in unit seven teaches it.
plus, "After bad times" is obviously to be translated with post+abl, and as you correctly said, "three days is a measure, but bad times probably isn't".

I think you're complicating this thread. Rhuiden thought prepositions only took the ablative and all I said is that some prepositions (like ante and post) only take the accussative, and your "not quite" to that inference would only fit if I had talked about the in preposition, for instance, since it can take an ablative or an accusative.
again, i wasn't talking about adverbs, just prepositions, and the post and ante prepositions indeed only take the accusative.

I answered based on the chapter he is in, which made me believe he is a beginner. why would I want to complicate my answer unnecessarily?

Fair enough.

He might want to know however that post and ante can be adverbs as well as prepostitions, and they can, in those circumstances, appear with nouns in the ablative.

Sorry I appeared pedantic. Not my intention to try to haul you over the coals. I am unfamiliar with this Wheelock textbook.

Thanks for the help guys. I am a beginner and have only been learning the actual meaning of the words but have not taken the time to memorize the entire definition. I obviously need to start doing that.

I looked up "post" in the dictionary and it does say "prep + acc." I should have paid more attention to the vocabulary.

Rhuiden