Translation help

[Philosophia]

Hey everyone, I've been trying to learn Latin for quite awhile only doing it when I had free time which wasn't very often. Now that I've finished my summer work and all the stuff I have to do I've been trying to slowly go through Wheelock's textbook spending about an hour and a half a day reading and practicing. When it comes to translating from Latin to English I do quite well, maybe making one slight mistake that's easily fixable. However when I'm doing English to Latin I constantly screw up. I have no official answer key, but I've been using "www.geneseo.edu/~vanvliet/latin/Chapter%20VII.rtf" for each chapter to check them.

In particularly for Chapter VII I've had issues with numbers 12, 13, and 14.

Here are my translations:

12. Many students used to have little time for Greek literature.
Multae discipulae parvus tempus gracis litteris habebant.

This one wasn't too bad, but it wasn't easy to translate for me.

13. After bad times true virtue and much labor will help the state.

Pax virtus et multus labor post mala tempora civitatem aduivabunt.

Word order kind of confuses me. Wheelock's textbook says for the most part it doesn't matter, but would this be wrong?

14. The daughters of your friends were dining there yesterday.

Filiae amicorum tuorum heri ibi cenabant.

I'm trying to learn on my own because my school doesn't offer Latin and there's not a place I can take a course around me. Could anyone suggest material that would give me better practice? I enjoy using 38 stories, but there's only so many to practice and I don't want to move on to further chapters if I'm not really grasping the current ones. I've heard lingua latina is good, but I'm not really sure how it would work using it on your own if it's entirely in Latin.

[adrianus]

12. ...parvum tempus... habebant. parvum (adjectivum accusativo casu neutri [vel neutrius] generis secundae declinationis) tempus (tempus temporis,—nomen accusativo casu neutri generis tertiae declinationis)
graecis, non gracis

13. Virtus vera, quod virtus (virtus virtutis) est nomen feminini generis.
Multi discipuli (masculini vel utriusque generis) vel multae discipulae, ut dicis, (femininae seu feminini generis), alterum bonum est.

14. Bonum est responsum tuum.

Mactè (well done)!

Iste cursus, scilicet Lingua Latina, perutilis est et ad autodidactum aptum, ut opinor, quod sunt impressiones sonituum.
Et in interrete habes, nota bene, haec: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.04.0059 et http://archives.nd.edu/words.html

Extra poetarum artem, emphasis (seu ponderis seu vis) ratione, ordo verborum momenti est.

Et ego discipulus autodidactos [vel autodidactus—nomen graecum in linguâ latinâ est autodidactos, et nominativo casu singulariter] saepè vel nonnunquam erro.

[Philosophia]

Thank you very much for the help. I understood most of it, except I didn't really get the part about Lingua Latina.

[adrianus]

"Iste cursus, scilicet Lingua Latina, perutilis est et ad autodidactum aptum, ut opinor, quod sunt impressiones sonituum."
I said "aptum" originally which means "an apt thing", a substantive. "Aptus" as an adjective would be better to agree with "cursus -ûs" (masculine)
Suprà "aptum" scripsi quod substantivum "res apta" significat. Meliùs "aptus" adjectivum scripsissem quod cum cursûs (masculini generis) verbo concurrat.

"The course mentioned, namely Lingua Latina, is very useful and appropriate to the independent (or self-) learner, in my opinion, because there are sound recordings" [of sounds—sonituum = sonitus -ûs nomen declinationis quartae, casu genetivo pluraliter]

Sic est modus discendi Linguae Latinae cursûs: se immergere in linguam modo bene proposito.
That's the manner of learning in Lingua latina: immersion in the language in a well-structured way.

Note that I trust Orberg's latin but I do not trust my own as a student of the language.
Discipulus linguae fidem in latinitate Orbergensis habeo, non in meâ propriâ, nota.

[Philosophia]

Thank you very much for explaining. I'm quite impressed with your ability to write in Latin, I hope one day I'll be able to do the same.

[adrianus]

Me te adjuvisse valdè placuit. Spero fore, Philosophia, ut sic vel meliùs latinè scribere futurò possis.