Hello all!! I’ve been studying Latin for a couple of months now and I was just wondering could someone check this and make sure that I translated this paragraph correctly into Latin. If I have anything wrong then you can just correct it for me and/or tell me what I did wrong then give the correction.
Here’s the English:
1.I didn’t do anything today. 2.I just studied all day long. 3.By the way, If I say a word incorrectly, will you tell me which word I said incorrectly? Thank you. 4.Well, besides that, when I was studying earlier today, I said a lot of words incorrectly that I thought were right at the time. 5.But after studying all day I can distinguish between any word pertaining to Japanese grammar. 6.For example, I was talking to my friend today about the time when we went to the nightclub together. 7.He told me that he would talk to all the beautiful women that he saw there but because he got scared of the women he didn’t talk to anyone. 8.I told him " You don’t want a woman. 9.Because if you wanted one you would already have one by now." 10.Then he told me that the next time we go to the club, he is going to talk to all the beautiful women he sees there. 11.He needs to talk to some pretty women, because he hasn’t spoken to women for a long time. 12.But he surprised me too. 13.When I found out that he started talking to women, I couldn’t believe it. 14.But it was true. 15.I’m proud of him.
Here’s the Latin:
Nihil feci hodie, modo “all day” studui. “By the way”, si nonnullus verba corrupte dico, qui verba sum corrupte me des? “Thank you”. Eia, “besides that”, quando superus hodie studebe, multa verba corrupte dixi ut fuit rectus circumspicebam olim. Sed postilla “all day” studens, possum inter ullus verbum pertinens grammaticae Latin cernere. Verbi causa, “with” amicis meus fabulebam ad “una vez” quando ad decuria ivimus. Nostra dedit ut “com todas” muleris vidi illi ibit fabulare sed quod muleris metuit, “avec” quis non fabulavit. Ego homo divi “Tu mulier non eges. Quod si tu mulier eguisti, haberis iam.” Tum, me dedit ut posthinc tempus quando ad decuria iremus, “com todas” muleris illi fabulet. Homo “avec” mulier pulcher “needs” fabulare quod “avec” mulier non fabulit multa mensis. Sed me deprendit quando me comperi ut “avec” muleris commovit fabulare. Non credidi prior sed “it is” germanus. Homo superbio.
Hi Tony, it’s good to practice Latin in your everyday writings. You will inevitably run into situations where you haven’t learnt the proper way to deal with a certain construction, which happened several times, probably unbeknownst to you, with indirect statements, subjunctives, deponents, relatives, vocabulary (and uses of words), etc. I went through and made quite a few corrections and suggestions, but in some cases the whole sentence needs to be reworked, for example because of indirect speech, so corrections would be futile there.
2
“all day” could be rendered totum diem or similar.
3
“by the way” = obiter
nonnullus should agree with verba if I understand you correctly. You could also rephrase it from “si nonnulla verba…” to “nisi nulla verba…”
your conditional “if I say… will you tell me… ?” in Latin would normally put “say” in the future or future perfect and “tell” in the future.
“will you tell” calls for a future of dico, dicere or a similar verb. des is not a form of dicere, which I assume is the verb you meant to use.
“(will you tell me) which word I said incorrectly?” is an indirect question, which calls for a subjunctive. This may be beyond your current knowledge: (dicesne mihi) quae verba corrupte dixerim?
“(I) thank you” = gratias tibi ago
4
“I was studying” = studebam; studebe is not a possible form.
“earlier” could be a construction with antea, nuper, or similar, but not just superus.
“that I thought were right” is a relative clause and requires indirect speech: quae recta esse putabam (lit. “which I thought to be right”). Circumspiciebam is an odd choice of words which I would replace with putabam.
5
Postilla is not Classical; you ought to use a word such as antea instead. “all day” once again is totum diem.
I don’t understand what you mean in this sentence, but you need to make ullus agree with verbum and you can use the adjective Latinus, -a, -um if you want to say “Latin” in Latin.
6
“with” is cum + ablative. Meus has to agree with amicus if you mean to say “my friend”
Fabulor, -ari, -atus sum is a deponent verb, so unless you have learnt that class of verbs you cannot conjugate it. All uses of it in this piece of writing are incorrect.
Ad “una vez”? “about the time when…” should be de tempore quo or similar
Decuria doesn’t mean “night-club”
7
“He told me that he would talk to all the beautiful women that he saw there but because he got scared of the women he didn’t talk to anyone.”
Dixit se cum omnibus mulieribus quas ibi uideret locuturum esse sed, propter mulierum timorem, cum nulla locutus est. You can’t really render this sentence properly without knowledge of indirect speech, relative pronouns/clauses, and preferably deponent verbs.
8
“I told” = dixi, narraui; divi is not a form of dico.
Homo means “man” (nom.). “(to) him” would be ei, illi, or similar.
Mulier is not the subject, so why did you make it nominative? Cupis or desideras would make more sense than eges here.
9
Again, mulier should not be nominative because tu is the subject. Eguisti is not the best choice of verbs.
This whole conditional describes a hypothetical situation, so it calls for subjunctive: si mulierem cuperes, iam haberes.
10
dedit doesn’t mean “he told”… it means “he gave” – you must mean dixit.
You have to use indirect speech; I am afraid it is not so simple as just adding an “ut” when you want to translate “that”. It is hard to correct anything in the sentence because it first must be in indirect speech.
“with all the beautiful women” = cum omnibus mulieribus pulchris (cum + ablative)
fabulet is not a possible word form because fabulari is deponent.
11
I’m afraid that you didn’t decline a single noun in this sentence! Necesse est illi colloqui cum feminis pulchris quod cum feminis diu non locutus est (sounds a bit like me!)
12/13
why is there a ‘me’ in front of comperi, did you find yourself?
again, you cannot translate (found out) “that” by just inserting “ut”, you must use indirect speech:
“I found out that he started talking to women”
comperi eum cum mulieribus loqui coepisse
commovere doesn’t take a complementary infinitive as far as I know. Use a verb such as coepi, coepisse instead.
If you meant to say “before(hand)”, change prior to prius
14
“it is true” = verum est
15
the word “proud” usually carries a negative sense in Latin. Homo means “man” and since you put it in the nominative it has to be the subject “I, a man, am proud”
Wow! Thanks for the reply and the tips. I was beginning to think no-one could help me. So for the ones you didn’t translate but just gave me tips, does that mean I translated that sentence correct except for your correction or??? I’m just trying to put everything that you corrected into one coherent paragraph like the English version. Ok thanks again!!
