help with english to latin translations

Latin Learning Latin
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  1. They cannot keep us from the wall.
    Non possunt nobis ab muro prohibent

possum needs to be followed by an infinitive. Also I don’t think prohibeo takes a dative object - so use nos

  1. Those javelins were thrown with great force.
    Illa pilum iactus est magna vie

pilum and iactus est need to go into the plural.
Ablative of vis is vi.

  1. War deprived the wretched inhabitants of food.
    Bellum privavit oppidum miserum de cibo

Inhabitants is incolae, or incolas in this case. Make sure privo takes the preposition de to denote the thing taken away. It could be a plain ablative of separation/deprivation.

  1. There are many thousand men on the hill.
    Multi mille viri sunt incolle

Sunt should, I think, be put first.
in colle should be two words, but I’m sure that’s a typo.
Many thousands of men (is that what you meant?) would be:
Multa milia virorum.
When mille is in the singular it acts like an indeclinable adjective.
When in the plural it’s almost like a noun, and takes a genitive of definition.
Compare this to English usage:
a dozen eggs versus dozens of eggs
Milia thus acts like a neuter plural noun.

22

Actually the book I got it from says there are many thousand men on the hill, which is why I wasn’t sure whether it was supposed to be singular or plural. I guess its a typo in the book.

Anyway, thanks for the help :smiley:

23

O Episcope, it is funny to hear you commenting on word order when you used to be a maniac with it and still are to a degree. :confused: Where was I? in colle diu stabam.

A wise precaution, Turpissime. privo, -are takes only the ablative of separation in Classical writing.

There are a couple constructions with mille which I get mixed up quite often. You may as well translate it as though it said “thousands”, at least then you will know what construction to use and the meaning won’t be changed. This English sentence does raise an interesting question: why can the plural “many” (as opposed to singular “much”) go with singular “thousand”? Collective noun I suppose.

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  1. Those javelins were thrown with great force.
    Illa pila iacta sunt magna vi

Please some one give me a javelin! You should have listened to my earlier post please just put iacta sunt at the end. Otherwise all your other work on vocabulary and grammar shall be in vain and that were a shame.

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What about these?

  1. The enemies were defeated by the courage of our infantry
    Hostes victus sunt virtute nostros pedites

  2. The germans enjoy war
    germani fruorunt bello

  3. He defended himself with a shield
    Defendit se scuto

  4. He set out at day break
    profiscit prima luce

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participles, like adjectives, must agree with their noun in both case and number; victus should agree with nom. plur. hostes.
“of our infantry” is genitive, but you have written nostros pedites (accusative).

  1. The germans enjoy war
    germani fruorunt bello

to use the verb fruor, frui, fructus sum, take the verb stem “fru-” and add the proper passive ending (it is deponent). The passive ending for 3rd conjugation 3rd person plur. is “-untur”.

  1. He defended himself with a shield
    Defendit se scuto

correct, do try to impose a Latin word order though subject - direct object - adverbial phrase - verb

  1. He set out at day break
    profiscit prima luce

proficiscor, proficisci, profectus sum is deponent, you must use passive endings with it always. In addition, you need to use the verb’s stem, which is “proficisc-” (not “profisc-”). If you do not know how to derive the present stem, you simply take the infinitive and chop off the infinitive ending. That last comment is really not important for this sentence though since this sentence calls for perfect tense anyways.

27

Thanks. What about these?

  1. Hand over the money, farmer.
    Trade pecunia agricola

  2. Let us not fear that which we cannot see.
    Ne timemus illud utrum non possumus videre

  3. Put your feet into the water, girls.
    Ponite tuos pedes in aquam puellae

  4. Pray for us.
    Ora pro nobis

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  1. Hand over the money, farmer.
    Trade pecunia agricola

  2. Let us not fear that which we cannot see.
    Ne timemus illud utrum non possumus videre

  3. Put your feet into the water, girls.
    Ponite tuos pedes in aquam puellae

  4. Pray for us.
    Ora pro nobis

  1. Trade pecuniam agricola

Accusative case, Mr Wiggly

  1. Ne timeamus quod non possumus videre.

Timeamus = jussive/hortatory subjunctive
Quod = that which, what
illud means that, uter is which. But you can’t just translate literally like this. Let us not fear what we can’t see is what is meant here. Use quod.

  1. I’d put some punctuation in this sentence. Otherwise people might think you mean the water of the girl.

  2. I’m not aware of how the idiom “pray for” is translated into Latin. Pro does indeed mean “on behalf of”, so it’s a good guess, even if it’s wrong.

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I was having some trouble with these ones, so I’m guessing there’s alot wrong with them:

  1. I do not trust him when he says this
    hoc rem dicentem ei non credo

  2. After capturing these soldiers, he sent them to Caesar.
    Captos hos milites, misit eos ad Caesarem

  3. Having advanced three miles, he pitched camp on the bank of a certain river.
    Progressus trios millias passos, ponit castram in rip cuidam fluminis
    <I didn’t know what to do with “a certain river” so I used genitive of description.

  4. We made an attack on the enemy who were approaching.
    Hostes appropinquentes impetum facimus

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there is no need for rem, but if you were to use it you would have to make the adjective hoc feminine. A simple neuter hoc would be best though (toss rem).

dicentem “saying” has to agree with the word “him”, which is in the dative (not accusative). You need to put the whole phrase “him saying” into dative, not just the “him” part. You must remember that participles are like adjectives in that they always agree in case, number, and gender with their nouns.

  1. After capturing these soldiers, he sent them to Caesar.
    Captos hos milites, misit eos ad Caesarem

You have two direct object here, get rid of eos. What you are really saying is “he sent the captured soldiers to Caesar” which is a nice succinct way to put it in Latin, but as you can see there is no need for the word “them” anymore.

  1. Having advanced three miles, he pitched camp on the bank of a certain river.
    Progressus trios millias passos, ponit castram in rip cuidam fluminis
    <I didn’t know what to do with “a certain river” so I used genitive of description.

“mile” is mille passuum, so “miles” is milia passuum (neuter). You must use the neuter plural of the word tres then, which is tria. Do not take passuum out of the genitive whatever you do, the expression is literally “thousand(s) of paces”, it has to be genitive plural or the phrase doesn’t make sense.

castra, castrorum “camp” is a neuter plural, the accusative is the same as the nominative.

I assume rip is a typo for ripa.

The genitive of quidam, quaedam, quoddam is cuiusdam (all genders), cuidam is the dative (all genders).

  1. We made an attack on the enemy who were approaching.
    Hostes appropinquentes impetum facimus

Again you have translated this as though there were two direct objects, which is not so in the Latin. impetum facere means “to make an attack”, “to make on attack on ____” would probably be _impetum facere in _____ (dative might work instead of in).

facimus is present, you need to use a past tense.

appropinquo, -are is 1st conjugation. Now I can HARDLY blame you for a little slippage on this sesquipedalian word :wink: The present participle is appropinquans, -ntis (-ans).

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What about these?

  1. Many men thought that she ws very beautiful.
    Multis de viris existemavisse fuit puchrimissimam

  2. We think that the money will be found soon.
    Nos existimare pecuniam repperit mox

  • I wasn’t really sure what to do with mox
  1. A few of the nations had already promised to send help.
    Paucae nationibus iam pollicerant missurum esse auxillium
  • I wasn’t sure what case iam is supposed to be
  1. Did the scouts report that the mountain had been captured?
    Fecitne exploratiores nuntisse montem captus erat
  • I didn’t know whether to put report in present or perfect, and I
    ended up using the perfect.
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  1. Many men thought that she ws very beautiful.
    Multis de viris existemavisse fuit puchrimissimam

This will need a fair bit of work…

Try to translate “many men thought” - it’s multi existimaverunt, isn’t it?

Now with reported speech, which includes not only reports from a third person about someone’s speech, but also their thoughts, judgements etc., we use the accusative and infinitive construction. So we should say:

she (in the accusative case)
very beautiful (again in the accusative case)
to be (infinitive form - esse).

The infinitive can vary in tense. If the action the infinitive refers to takes place before the speech/thought, then it will be the past infinitive.

If ‘at the same time as’, then it will be the present infinitive. Even if, and this should be made absolutely clear, the main verb (I thought, I said) is in a past tense.

And the superlative form of pulcher is pulcherrimus. Adjectives ending in -er add rimus/a/um instead of adding -issimus to the stem. Adjectives ending in -lis likewise form the superlative with -illimus.

  1. We think that the money will be found soon.
    Nos existimare pecuniam repperit mox
  • I wasn’t really sure what to do with mox

We think is existimamus. There is absolutely no reason to put it into the infinitive.

Will be found requires a future passive infinitive. Now, such a thing does not really exist in Latin. Instead the Romans used the fore ut construction, with either the imperfect or present subjunctive - depending on whether the main (“speaking verb”) is in a past or the present tense.

So to translate “He says that the camp will be captured”, we say

Dicit fore ut castra capiantur.

Castra here is in the nominative, since it is the subject of the sentence.

Mox is fine.

  1. A few of the nations had already promised to send help.
    Paucae nationibus iam pollicerant missurum esse auxillium
  • I wasn’t sure what case iam is supposed to be

A few of the nations - this uses much the same arrangement of words as we use in English. Pauci nationum. . . I think (someone check this)

Iam doesn’t use cases. It’s an adverb, like truly, surely or very. It modifies whole sentences.

Polliceor is a deponent verb. Here you need to use the pluperfect (correct), but you need to use the passive. Polliciti erant.

auxilium has one L.

The clause of indirect speech (literally: they to be going to send help) is next. You need:

Se (which refers to a few of the nations)
auxilium (the help, here in the accusative)
missuros esse (this is the future infinitive, and must agree with the subject)

  1. Did the scouts report that the mountain had been captured?
    Fecitne exploratiores nuntisse montem captus erat
  • I didn’t know whether to put report in present or perfect, and I
    ended up using the perfect.

“Did the scouts report?” is nuntiaveruntne exploratores.

“that the mountain had been captured” is literally in the Latin “the mountain to have been captured”

captus/a/um esse is to have been captured. Here the participle agrees with mountain, which is masculine and in the singular. You are quite correct that the infinitive is to be in the perfect.



You seem to be quite confused as to how reported speech works. Remember that such sentences come in two bits. One looks like

he thought that, I said that, the scouts reported that, the consul agreed that

And it is this part where the verbs behave normally according to their normal conjugation. The other part, the part that deals with what is reported, is put into the infinitive. So that the mountain had been captured is put into latin words that literally mean the mountain to have been captured.

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Remember also how the infinitives behave:

present active - amare
present passive - amari

perfect active - amavisse
perfect passive - amatus/a/um esse

future active - amaturus/a/um esse

The participle bits of the perfect passive and future active infinitives agree with the subject of the sentence. So, in “He said the mountain had been captured” the captus part of captus esse agrees with mountain. This being an accusative and infinitive construction, it’s going to be captum, isn’t it?

Likewise in “Caesar said he was going to capture the mountain” the capturus part of the future active infinitive is going to agree, not with mountain, but with Caesar - even though the same activity is being described. It relates to who is the subject of the clause. The past participle is passive and the future participle is active.

If you don’t understand these issues it’s probably best you come to us or speak with your teacher. I think you might need some more help to get it all sorted out. Maybe just try sleeping on the problem…

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:open_mouth: Turpe…

Dicit castra capta ire?

35

Ah the old future passive periphrastic. One of the subtle joys of Latin syntax.

Kaspar, you are thinking of the future passive infinitive which is formed from the supine and the present passive infinitive of eo.

amatum iri

This is exceedingly rare in Latin. I doubt anyone has ever seen it outside of a grammar book. The first bit is a supine by the way and does not agree with the subject of the clause.

The correct way to talk about something that is going to happen, or was going to happen in the future is to use the future passive periphrastic. The principle is easier to grasp than the name.

Dicit fore ut dux capiatur.
He said the leader will be captured

Dixit fore ut dux caperetur.
He said the leader would be captured

It’s a point of Latin syntax that is left quite late in most learners’ curriculum. It’s not that rare though. Happens a couple of times in each chapter of De Bello Gallico.

It also sometimes occurs instead of the future active infinitive.

Ei visus est iuvenis dicere, fore ut brevi convalesceret
The young man seemed to him to be saying that he would shortly recover

Convalesco doesn’t have a fourth principle part, so there would be no way of saying this otherwise.

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Hmm… I must admit you are right. I can’t believe I still stuff this up! :blush:

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  1. They sent ahead certain of the soldiers to learn the nature of the region.
    Praemiserunt quidam de militibus ut cognoscerent naturam regionis

  2. The enemy are losing so many men that they can be defeated easily.
    Hostes amittens tot de virorum ut possint vinceri facile

  3. Three thousand foarmers assembled to repulse the British
    Tres milia agricolarum convenerunt ut repellerent Britannos

  4. Has he a shield with which to defend himself?
    Habetne scutum cum quod ut defendeat se?

  5. Did he persuade the other consul to make war on the gauls?
    Persuadetne altero consuli ut bellum ferat Galliam?

  6. We shall not allow those merchants to remain here.
    Non permittimus illis mercatoribus ut maneunt hic

  7. Casear ordered the camp to be fortified.
    Caesar iubit castris ut munirentur

  8. Wars often cause the nimber of citizens to be lessened.
    Bella sape efficiunt multitudinem civem ut minuantur

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  1. They sent ahead certain of the soldiers to learn the nature of the region.
    Praemiserunt quidam de militibus ut cognoscerent naturam regionis

  2. The enemy are losing so many men that they can be defeated easily.
    Hostes amittens tot de virorum ut possint vinceri facile

“certain of the soldiers” must surely be quosdam militum. Accusative case. De DOES NOT MEAN OF. Very important that. It means about or concerning.

Are losing is translated simply by the present tense in Latin. Avoid thinking “well the English mentions losing so I suppose I have to as well”. So many men is tot viros. Once again DE DOES NOT MEAN OF. Vincere is a third declension verb so it’s passive present infinitive is vinci.

  1. Three thousand foarmers assembled to repulse the British
    Tres milia agricolarum convenerunt ut repellerent Britannos

  2. Has he a shield with which to defend himself?
    Habetne scutum cum quod ut defendeat se?

  3. Did he persuade the other consul to make war on the gauls?
    Persuadetne altero consuli ut bellum ferat Galliam?

3 is good. In 5 the idiom you’re looking for is bellum inferre.

I’m not so sure myself about the construction to be used in 4. I’d be minded to use an adjectival clause of purpose. So I would write cum quo se defendat - “with which he might defend himself”. There’s no “e” in there - it’s a third declension verb.

  1. We shall not allow those merchants to remain here.
    Non permittimus illis mercatoribus ut maneunt hic

  2. Casear ordered the camp to be fortified.
    Caesar iubit castris ut munirentur

  3. Wars often cause the nimber of citizens to be lessened.
    Bella sape efficiunt multitudinem civem ut minuantur

6.) Future tense here. Permittemus. Also subjunctive in the clause of indirect command.

7.) Use the perfect tense. Secondly, he’s not ordering the camp to do something - he’s ordering that the camp be fortified.

8.) saepe is the correct spelling. Always remember that in Latin we say (wars often cause) that (the number of citizens be reduced). This, to my mind at least, is not a result clause but a noun clause stating what results. Anyway, since “the number of citizens” is not the object of “wars often cause”, but the subject of “that . . . be lessened”, you must consider (a) the case of citizens and (b) the placement of the phrase in the sentence.

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  1. In fact you can use ‘de’ here but ‘ex’ is more common.

  2. Wiggly are you french? ‘tot de’ sounds like ‘trop de’. Even though it’s quite funny don’t use ‘de’ partitively. If you want to do this use das partitive genitive! Wherewith one rendered it “Virorum tantum” (lit. so much of men) or “viros tot”.

  3. Third conjugation verb. Love correcting those typo/not thinking errors for demz so patronising!

  4. Latin is so simple. Use the relative neut. sing of qui quae quod in the instrumental case. I mean ablative of instrument. Too much indo-european.
    Cum is NOT needed to denote instrument/means/manner.

  5. Flip the inflections. Alter, a , um is one of 9 irregular adjectives, thus it is alteri consuli. With compound verbs of two possible objects the one in english followed by das preposition will be in the DATIVE case and the direct object ACCUSATIVE. i.e. bellum ut gallis inferret? Persuasitne = did he persuade? Perfect indefinite you are looking for. Thus we use according to of tense sequence IMPERFECT subjunctive. Take the infinitive and slap on personal ending. Inferre-t (3rd. sing. ) Simple.

  6. iubere has ‘irregular’ perfect stem = learn them: iuss- No need for substantive clause ut there, some verbs like iubere, cupere, velle etc. prefer to have an infinitive. Which of course will be passive. (muniri) castra must be accusative as object thereof.

  7. civium multitudo as it is the subject of the subordinate clause it can’t be accusative.

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  1. She never told him whether she wished to go or not
    Numquam dixit eum utrum voluisset ire necne non

  2. We hoped to find the very stone with which the general was killed
    Speramus repperi lapidem cum quem ducem interficeretur

  3. He asked us where the sword had been put
    Rogavit nos ubi gladium passuessit erat

  4. I am trying to learn which hill they will fortify
    sum conarens cognoscere quem collem muniantur