BLB Collar - section 50. II. exercises question

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pommefritz
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BLB Collar - section 50. II. exercises question

Post by pommefritz »

I started Collar's BLB a few days ago and I'm running into a confusing point that he never really explains/provides an example for in the section 50 exercises.

Here is the original English and my Latin sentence, without the marks for long vowels:

The gift is pleasing to the good friend.
<i>Donum amico bono est gratum.</i>

The broad cup is pleasing to the new pupil.
<i>Poculum latum est discipulo novo gratum.</i>

As you can see, I am really lost on where to put the "est" in these sentences. Or do I not need one at all? Any explanation would be appreciated... this is driving me crazy. I haven't studied Romance languages before - I'm a native English speaker whose first foreign language was Japanese - so I don't have a good natural feel for the word order yet and this point is really bugging me.


thanks!
molly

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benissimus
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Post by benissimus »

Your sentences are very nice in form. It isn't really a big deal where you put the est. It can go at the end like a normal verb or between the 'subject' and 'object' (though technically the verb "to be" does not have an object) as you have it with no real change in meaning.
flebile nescio quid queritur lyra, flebile lingua murmurat exanimis, respondent flebile ripae

pommefritz
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Post by pommefritz »

Thanks so much for your reply! I feel a lot better. I'm enjoying the endless examples in Collar's book (I felt very confused until I started doing them, and found through practice that things became very self-explanatory) - but his lack of explanation worries me sometimes. Now that I realize how flexible the word order is, I think the examples will start making much more sense to me.

I have another related question after working through more of the examples. A few sections down, this sentence appears:

Nautae grata sunt ova et vinum agricolae boni.

I'm pretty lost on the meaning here. If the <i>grata</i> is left out, since nautae is in dative case I'm guessing the meaning is "The sailors have the eggs and wine of the good farmers." The addition of "pleasing" to this equation is confusing in the sense of - is it "pleasing sailors" (pleasing to others) or "happy sailors" (ie pleasing to themselves - they're happy about having the eggs and wine)? Or am I missing the real meaning of the sentence?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can shed some light on this for me :)

molly

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benissimus
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Post by benissimus »

pommefritz wrote:Thanks so much for your reply! I feel a lot better. I'm enjoying the endless examples in Collar's book (I felt very confused until I started doing them, and found through practice that things became very self-explanatory) - but his lack of explanation worries me sometimes. Now that I realize how flexible the word order is, I think the examples will start making much more sense to me.
The word order in Latin is extremely flexible, and is used to convey different emphases. It is hard to explain what exactly they are, and I think you will be able to pick it up from examples in your reading (which you can then use in your own writing if you choose).
I have another related question after working through more of the examples. A few sections down, this sentence appears:

Nautae grata sunt ova et vinum agricolae boni.

I'm pretty lost on the meaning here. If the <i>grata</i> is left out, since nautae is in dative case I'm guessing the meaning is "The sailors have the eggs and wine of the good farmers." The addition of "pleasing" to this equation is confusing in the sense of - is it "pleasing sailors" (pleasing to others) or "happy sailors" (ie pleasing to themselves - they're happy about having the eggs and wine)? Or am I missing the real meaning of the sentence?
This one is pretty tough. In this sentence, grata is taking a dative (nautae) to mean "pleasing to ____". Also, grata is modifying both ova and vinum, but it only matches the one closest to it. Therefore, it should be translated as, or similar to:
"The good farmer's eggs and wine are pleasing to the sailor."
flebile nescio quid queritur lyra, flebile lingua murmurat exanimis, respondent flebile ripae

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