Translation help.

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petespits
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Translation help.

Post by petespits »

Liber tuus et lectus est et legitur a me cum diligentia. Vis autem verborum intellegi non potest.

I'm confused by the first sentence. "liber" and "lectus" are both nom. sing. and "legitur" is 3rd passive.

Any hints would be great. I can't make sense of it.

For the second sentence I translated it as "However, he was not able to understand the power of words."

Imber Ranae
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Re: Translation help.

Post by Imber Ranae »

Lectus est is the perfect passive form of legere. It's not from the noun lectus,-i "bed". The et's are coordinating the two verbs: "Your book both was read and is being read by me with diligence." Intellegi is present passive infinitive, so: "The force of the words, however, cannot be understood." ("by me" being understood.)
Ex mala malo
bono malo uesci
quam ex bona malo
malo malo malo.

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ptolemyauletes
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Re: Translation help.

Post by ptolemyauletes »

I think lectus est is more likely to be read in it's literal meaning 'to choose'
Hence 'your book was chosen and is being read...'
But it is hard to tell for sure. Seems to make more sense?
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benissimus
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Re: Translation help.

Post by benissimus »

I tend to side with ImberRanae, just because I think a good author would avoid the ambiguity of using two radically different meanings of lego right beside each other without further clarification. The way I interpret it is "I've read your book and I'm still in the process of reading it, but I can't get the gist of it."
flebile nescio quid queritur lyra, flebile lingua murmurat exanimis, respondent flebile ripae

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ptolemyauletes
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Re: Translation help.

Post by ptolemyauletes »

Yes, I see and agree. That makes sense.
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.

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