help with translations please.

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k.ideas
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help with translations please.

Post by k.ideas »

Hi there if been having difficulties (as usual) translating the following..
Id appreciate any help.

1) Patria vestra semper erit libera: quare discipuli mei, ibi remanete!
Your fatherland will always be free: because of my (male) students, there it will remain!

I dont really know what remanete translates to or at lest the -te ending.

2)Debemus viros stultos de insidiis monere
We ought to warn the foolish men about ( ... plot)
doesnt insidiis translate to plural dative therefore making it to/for the ambush/plan

3)Teachers, are your students able to be safe now?
Magistri, vestrum discipula salvum nunc possunt.

4) The glory of the Greeks and Romans was perpetual (using -que)
Gloria Graecorum Romanorumque perpetum

Alatius
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Re: help with translations please.

Post by Alatius »

k.ideas wrote:1) Patria vestra semper erit libera: quare discipuli mei, ibi remanete!
Your fatherland will always be free: because of my (male) students, there it will remain!
The word quare all by itself means "therefore", or "because of that". (If you want to say "because of something" in Latin, you could use propter, which governs the accusative. So "becuase of my male students" would be "propter discipulos meos". But that is besides the point.)
What case is "discipuli mei" in? It may be clearer if you add a comma after "quare".
What about "remanete"? I suppose you are familiar with the words "vale" and "valete"? What is the difference between the two, i.e., when would you use the first and when the later? The "-te" of "remanete" is the same as in "valete". Now, that may not help you much, till you realise that valere is a verb which translates as "to be healthy". So, while "valete" can be said to mean "Goodbye!", it literally translates to...?

(Sorry if I'm confusing; just say so in that case, and I will be happy to elucidate.)
k.ideas wrote:2)Debemus viros stultos de insidiis monere
We ought to warn the foolish men about ( ... plot)
doesnt insidiis translate to plural dative therefore making it to/for the ambush/plan
Well, you correctly translate "de" as "about". About what? It must be what follows after "de". What case can "insidiis" be in? (Hint: not only dative.) What case does "de" govern?
k.ideas wrote:3)Teachers, are your students able to be safe now?
Magistri, vestrum discipula salvum nunc possunt.
Hmm, not quite. You mustn't forget to inflect the words to stand in agreement with each other. Let us translate this sentence one step at a time:

"Teachers" are the people that the question is addressed to. You correctly translate this as "magistri" (which is the vocative form), so let's just forget about that word for a while. It does not affect the construction of the following question.

First, how do you form a question? There are a couple of different ways, but the most neutral would probably be to use the ending "-ne", attached to the first (and most important) word in the question. Example: "Stultus est" means "He is foolish". "Estne stultus" means "Is he foolish?". "Stultusne est?" means "Is he foolish?" = "Is it foolish that he is?" The question was "Are they (= your students) able (to be safe) (now)?". "They are able" is correctly translated as "possunt", just as you did. Now, how do you say "Are they able?"?

Which grammatical role does "your students" have? (Is it subject, object...?) Which case should it stand in? Answer: it is the subject, and hence shall stand in the nominative. One student is a discipulus, as you know. How do you inflect this in the plural nominative? How do you translate "your" to agree with that?

What about "to be safe"? The infinitive "to be" would be "esse" in Latin. And "safe"? You can use the word "salvus" if you want; another possible candidate is "tutus"; it depends a bit on the context. But how should it be inflected? Which number (singular or plural), and what gender? And, most importantly, what case? Why?

Again, if you can't answer all those questions, don't dispair. Just explain what you have troubles with, and we will be able to assist you further.
k.ideas wrote:4) The glory of the Greeks and Romans was perpetual (using -que)
Gloria Graecorum Romanorumque perpetum
This is good up to "perpetum". What gender does gloria have? What case does it stand in? How would you inflect "perpetuus" to agree with that? (Note that the form is "perpetuus" with two "u", i.e., the stem is "perpetu-", to which the endings are affixed.) How do you translate "was"?

k.ideas
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Post by k.ideas »

Thank you so much for your help but I really am confused, even more than I originally was I think..


1) sorry I forgot to add the coma after the quare.
As for the case of discipuli mei it could either be plural nomative or singular genative or plural vocative so my students or of my student??
I understand valete is goodbye and valere is tobe healthy but Im sorry I still don’t know what remanete means

2)
insidiis if feminine and can be in either the dative plural or ablative plurals so again either to/for or with? And it translates to ambush, plot, or treachery.
I cant get it to fit in the sentence
We ought to warn the foolish men (to/for/with) the plot ??




3)
the plural of students would make it discipuli
as for “your? would it have to be neuter?feminine? or masculine?
Im assuming neuter which would make it vestrum and plural vestra .. is that correct?

I don’t understand why it isn’t possunt doest that translate to (they will be able) as in the students will be able?

As for salvus, once again wouldn’t salvum be correct since its neuter as well?


4)
Gloria is in the feminine case, but does that effect perpetum?
As well to translate was I need the –bat ending (imperfect tense “IT? being glory)

Gloria Graecorum Romanorumque perpetubat

Is that correct?

Kasper
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Post by Kasper »



Alatius
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Post by Alatius »

Just some point to complete what Kasper already said:

The words vale and valete (the first used when speaking to one person, the second when speaking to two and more) both mean "goodbye!"; but actually they are both imperatives (just as "remanete"), so a more literal translation of vale / valete would be "be healthy!".

About "de insidiis": when a word such as "insidiis" appears "by itself" (by which I mean "not following a preposition"), then you would rightly begin to wonder whether it is dative or ablative, and what function it has, if it is instrumental etc, i.e. if it should be translated as "to ...", "for ..." or "with ..." etc. But when it, as here, follows a preposition ("de"), you will have to take it as one unit. The fact that "insidiis" is in the ablative, only means that is to be taken together with "de". The preposition dictates how "insidiis" should be understood, in this case "about the plot".

About "possunt", I only wanted to show the pattern: "Stultus est" (statement) is to "estne stultus" (question), what "possunt" (statement) is to "possuntne" (question).

As said, the main thing you ought to work with is agreement: an adjective has to be inflected in the same gender, number and case as the noun it describes:

puer est stultus, puella est stulta, pueri sunt stulti, puellae sunt stultae, gloria est perpetua, video stultos pueros, etc.

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