Imperfect tense translation

Feles in silva · Post by **Feles in silva** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 5:19 pm

Here is a sentence I am trying to translate:

Magnum equum ligneum sub portis urbis Troiae nocte relinquunt.

I was thinking it could be translated in possibly two ways:

(1) The great wooden horse was being left under the city gates at night.
(2) The great wooden horse would be left under the city gates at night.

Since this story only assumes knowledge of the imperfect tense it makes for somewhat clunky reading but I think either translation above would fit.

Deses · Post by **Deses** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 5:22 pm

relinquunt is Pres. Act. Ind.

Feles in silva · Post by **Feles in silva** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 5:28 pm

So it would be:

The great wooden horse is being left under the city gates at night.

The 3rd conjugation endings have been making me mess up my tenses. I need to study them more.

Deses · Post by **Deses** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 6:38 pm

Feles in silva wrote:So it would be:

The great wooden horse is being left under the city gates at night.

The 3rd conjugation endings have been making me mess up my tenses. I need to study them more.

You would be better off not using a passive construction when it is not present in the Latin text. Just say that they are leaving the horse. Everyone knows who "they" are. Plus, the sentence implies a broader context.

Feles in silva · Post by **Feles in silva** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 6:54 pm

In other words, just say:

They are leaving the great wooden horse under the city gates at night.

I didn't even realise that I was using the passive in my translation. I guess I just translated what I thought would make sense as opposed to what was actually written.

Thanks.

Deses · Post by **Deses** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 7:09 pm

Sometimes it happens because we forget that in Latin the subject is often implied. On an exam using passive instead of active constructions may even cost a few points.

Feles in silva · Post by **Feles in silva** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 7:18 pm

Thanks Deses, I actually learned quite a lot from this simple sentence.

Magistra · Post by **Magistra** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 10:35 pm

Magnum equum ligneum sub portis urbis Troiae nocte relinquunt.

A good clue that you will have an active verb is that there's a 2nd declension masculine word ending in -um. That indicates accusative case. When there's no proposition with it (as there isn't here), odds are that it will be a direct object.

Right from the start of the sentence, you can say to yourself "someone did something to the big wooden horse".

Magistra