Textkit Greek and Latin Forums

Di Caesarem admonent.
The book says "The gods are warning Caesar."
I would have said "The gods warn Caesar."

Are they both right? The present active indicative can mean warn, am warning, do warn. So how do you distinguish the differences? Do you have to? Why wouldn't you use admonens?

Meghan

I think this is mentioned in Chapter 2. Admonent can be translated as the gods "warn", "are warning", and "do warn".

"The gods are warning Caesar" and "The gods warn Caesar" are both correct translations.

In some contexts you might want to use the present progressive "they are warning" over the present "they warn" to improve clarity.

If the Latin is saying that the event is going on at the very moment (nunc), you might want to consider using the present progressive. If it is affirming that something in true, you might want to say "they do warn". However, it's not going to be extremly important. Just look at what Wheelock says in Chapter 2.

This aspect of translation is flexible, there aren't going to be any clear rules to follow.

You will *never* use a participle + esse to mean "is (doing)". Ever.

there is no continiuse tense in latin, so both are ok

manderson wrote: Are they both right?

Yes.

The present active indicative can mean warn, am warning, do warn. So how do you distinguish the differences? Do you have to?

There are no hard and fast rules. You just have to judge it from context. It isn't high stakes--the meanings are only marginally different and none of the possible translations will be "wrong." I think the simple present is most common, but use whatever "feels" right.

Why wouldn't you use admonens?

That's just not the way it's done.