Translation Help

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Bona-facum
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Translation Help

Post by Bona-facum »

I need some help translating a quote from an American President into Latin. The original quote is, "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have". I believe I've literally translated it into English, but I know that my grammar and word-order is atrocious. Here's what I've got so far:

Administratio quod est magnum satis tribuo quid vos volo, est validus satis deporto quid obtineo

I know that validus means "strong" and not "big", but I think it fits better than "magnum". Any suggestions/advice on how to fix this and make it into a proper sentence would be greatly appreciated.

adrianus
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Re: Translation Help

Post by adrianus »

Salve, Bona-facum

Adjectives referring to a noun generally agree with the noun in gender, number and case; relative pronouns agree in number and gender with the preceding noun; the verb agrees with its subject in person and number.

Adjectivum casu numero genere cum nomine quod id refert communiter congruit; pronomen relativum nomini praecedenti numero genereque convenit; verbum et subjectum personâ numeroque inter se conveniunt.

"satis x quod" or/vel "satis x ut + subjunctive"
I'm writing in Latin hoping for correction, and not because I'm confident in how I express myself. Latinè scribo ut ab omnibus corrigar, non quod confidenter me exprimam.

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ptolemyauletes
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Re: Translation Help

Post by ptolemyauletes »

This sounds to me to be a perfect sentence for a quod id /qui ei , qui is construction!
'quae administratio' is big enough etc. 'ea' is big enough etc...

The 'administratio' clause needs to be subjunctive as it is a clause of characteristic.
There also seems to be a natural result clause here... a government so big that it...
Also the 'whatever you want' should be subjunctive... as a generic/characteristic subjunctive

Here is my suggestion:

'quae administratio sit tam magna ut tribuat quaecumque velitis, vero ea tam magna est ut auferat omnia quae habetis.'
The only thing we can guarantee when communicating via the internet is that we will be almost completely misunderstood, and likely cause great offence in doing so. Throw in an attempt at humour and you insure a lifelong enemy will be made.

adrianus
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Re: Translation Help

Post by adrianus »

Possibly? Forsit hoc?
Et spoliandorum quae respublica capax tantùm omnium satiandorum.
I'm writing in Latin hoping for correction, and not because I'm confident in how I express myself. Latinè scribo ut ab omnibus corrigar, non quod confidenter me exprimam.

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