My Greek is extremely rusty. One of my students is asking me for a Greek translation of a short little phrase (it is apparently some kind of joke). The phrase is ‘Are you ready for … THE ROOM?’
I have come up with something like this so far (apologies as I have no Greek script on my computer)
ei su hetoimos … HO KELLA?
Now, I want to use ‘kella’ as a generic word for room, but I am not sure how to attack the ‘ready for’ part of the phrase. In Latin it would be a simple ‘paratus ad cellam’, ad + accusative. How would Greek approach this? Does the adjective hetoimos take a particular case? Is there an appropriate preposition to use, pros, or something like it? Or would there be some other sort of construction entirely in use here?
Any help would be appreciated.
Simple dative or prepositional phrase εἰς/πρός + acc., according to LSJ.
κέλλα is feminine but in Attic it’s κέλλη, so it could be rendered as εἶ σὺ ἑτοῖμος/ἐτοίμη τῇ κέλλῃ
or εἰς/πρὸς τὴν κέλλην. (Βut perhaps you might wish to choose a Greek word and not one taken
from Latin for chamber, room.)
You might take τὸ οἴκημα for “the room.” If they mean a “school room,” you might use τὸ παιδαγωγεῖον. Another general word for room or chamber (often “bedroom”) is ὁ θάλαμος. I’d go with something like:
ἆρ᾿ ἑτοῖμοί ἐστε… τῷ οἰκήματι/παιδαγωγείῳ/θαλάμῳ; (Choose one of the words to go with.)
Since the sentence doesn’t really make sense in the first place (even in English - how does someone get ready for a room?), it’s kinda hard to say confidently how to put it into Greek.
I’ve used the masculine plural of ἑτοῖμος, assuming that it’s intended to be asking everyone if they’re ready for whatever it is.
The particle ἆρα/ἆρ᾿ is like -ne in Latin, expecting a yes/no answer.
If you want to go with κέλλα, it would be:
ἆρ᾿ ἑτοῖμοί ἐστε… τῇ κέλλῃ;
Middle Liddel:
ὁ θάλαμος
τὸ οἴκημα
τὸ παιδαγωγεῖον
ἡ κέλλα
By the way, what do you teach?