i have recently began latin thru d'ooge's wonderful little book. it's going well, but i have a lot of trouble with word order. translating sentences into english is simple enough, but translating from english to latin is much harder.
for example:
"(His) daughter is getting a good dinner for the farmer."
i translated as:
"Filia parat cenam bonam agricolae."
i thought i took care of the dative relation, put the words in the right order, etc., but the correct translation is:
"Filia agricolae bonam cenam parat."
1) is my word arrangement wrong, or am i merely emphasizing different words ?
2) what are the principles behind the proper arrangements? how do i know what arrangement is proper, and what arrangement is wrong?
thank you!
on the order of words...
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Alex Sheremet
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viking84
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That's what I call the curse of your mother tongue: you arrange the words in Latin the way you would arrange them in English.
D'Ooge himself gives the proper arrangement (p. 29):
the subject is the most important part, so comes first. Verb is the second most important part, so comes last and the other parts are in between.
The normal order of words is:
subject - modifiers of subject (like adjectives) - indirect object - direct object - adverb - verb
It's not as difficult as it may seem. With practice you'll soon get the hang of it
.
Renske
post scriptum: I've also just started working with D'Ooge. Maybe we could interchange e-mailadresses to form a little 'study group'?
D'Ooge himself gives the proper arrangement (p. 29):
the subject is the most important part, so comes first. Verb is the second most important part, so comes last and the other parts are in between.
The normal order of words is:
subject - modifiers of subject (like adjectives) - indirect object - direct object - adverb - verb
It's not as difficult as it may seem. With practice you'll soon get the hang of it
.Renske
post scriptum: I've also just started working with D'Ooge. Maybe we could interchange e-mailadresses to form a little 'study group'?
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Alex Sheremet
- Textkit Neophyte
- Posts: 24
- Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2006 12:06 pm
- Location: brooklyn, ny
-
viking84
- Textkit Neophyte
- Posts: 29
- Joined: Wed Dec 13, 2006 4:11 pm
you could print the book, just like I didAlex Sheremet wrote:ahh, thank you.. and, coincidentally, right after your reply, i got up to that part of the book.
as for a study group: sounds good, but my schedule is sort of irregular. i just switched to another book as well; could not drag myself to turn on the computer every time i wanted to study latin.
. It's worth it 
.