Translation to latin

Boban · Post by **Boban** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 4:41 pm

Is my translation ok?

1) Romans had many gods and goddesses.
Romanis multus dei et deae erant.

2) In spring many rivers overflow because of snow.
Vere tempore ex nive multus flumina crescunt.

3) Romulus and Remus have builted city on river bank.
In litore fluminis Romulus et Remus urbem aedificabant.

Kip · Post by **Kip** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 7:02 pm

I'm going to take a crack at #1 without my books just to see how close I got:

Romans had many gods and goddesses.

Romani dios et deas multas habent.

Here's hoping I retained some knowledge....

Deccius · Post by **Deccius** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 9:00 pm

2) In spring many rivers overflow because of snow.
Vere tempore ex nive multus flumina crescunt.

I don't think you have to include tempore here. I don't know why you have ex in your translation; you could simply use ablative of cause for the noun nix. The adjective multus does not agree with flumina. Crescunt is fine.

3) Romulus and Remus have builted city on river bank.
In litore fluminis Romulus et Remus urbem aedificabant.

The verb aedificabant is imperfect tense, and it should really be perfect tense, aedificaverunt. Instead of litore fluminis, you could use ripae fluminis, because litus, litoris usually refers to a seashore.

Deccius

Deudeditus · Post by **Deudeditus** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 9:13 pm

For #1, check the case of deus and deae. (Multus should agree with deus, since it is closest to it.) And check the case of Romani. You would need a different verb, too.
Romanus needs to be in the Nominative Plural.
Multus, Deus, and Dea need to be in the Accusative plural.
Erant is the wrong verb, but right conjugation.
#2 Multus should agree with flumina, neuter acc plural.
#3 Have built. The imperfect isn't generally translated with the auxilary verb 'to have'. 'they have built' corresponds more closely to aedificaverunt, the perfect tense. Aedificabant would probably be translated just as 'built' or 'were building'. But you got the right number, 3rd person plural.

Deudeditus · Post by **Deudeditus** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 3:40 am

Oh, didn't see you there D. Litus = sea coast only, correct?
ex can be translated as 'out of, etc.' or 'on account of, because of', similar to propter. i.e. Vir feminae, "Ex amore tuo," dixit Parthicus, "Veram pacem sentio." Where ex.. could be replaced w/ propter amorem tuam... It also kinda makes sense in English if one translates it directly.

tZeD · Post by **tZeD** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 6:40 am

I think that #1 is correct (except that multus needs to agree in number with the noun it modifies*). It's one of two ways of expressing "have" in Latin, right? Wheelock, for example, has under Dative of Possession, sentences such as:

Liber est mihi "I have a book"

*What are the rules for agreement between adjectives and compound nouns? I mean, if the two nouns have different genders, what gender would the adjective be? I'd guess that masculine wins out over the other two, but what if it's feminine and neuter? And do you use plural adjectives when you have two singular nouns together? (Wow, that's a lot of questions and hopefully not too tangential).

edonnelly · Post by **edonnelly** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 1:03 pm

tZeD wrote:What are the rules for agreement between adjectives and compound nouns? I mean, if the two nouns have different genders, what gender would the adjective be?

I discussed this a little in this thread.