Rome is a beautiful place. I look at the town. I am always scared.

OrionsBelt

New Member

I am just starting Latin and I have to translate a lot of short sentences. Could you walk me through the translations of these ones so I can do the others on my own?
 

Glabrigausapes

Philistine

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Milwaukee
OrionsBelt dixit:
Could you walk me through the translations of these ones
The key to understanding them is in the distinction between the nominative and accusative cases. Review these terms in your grammar book.

In the first and third sentences, we have only grammatical subjects (that is, 'Rome' and its predicate 'beautiful place' in sentence 1, and then 'I' in sentence 3). In translating, we must keep this in mind, for the subject of a sentence will always be nominative.

In the second sentence, the subject, 'I', is gotten by using the correct verb-ending of spectare 'to watch/look at'. The equivalent Latin pronoun 'ego' need not be used. The 'thing-being-watched', that is the object which 'receives' the action of the verb (in this case the 'town'), must be made accusative. Fortunately, the word for 'town' (oppidum) has the same form in the nom. as in the acc. case. This is known as the neuter rule.

Let us know if something remains unclear.
 

Callaina

Feles Curiosissima

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  • Patrona

Location:
Canada
This post should be in Latin Beginners. Can a mod move it, please?
 

john abshire

Well-Known Member

  • Patronus

I can try.
Pulcher locus est urbs Roma. Oppidum aspicio. Semper territa sum.
"Rome is a beautiful place"
Roma est locus pulcher.

Pulcher locus est urbs Romae
"A beautiful place is the city of Rome."
or/ "The city of Rome is a beautiful place."
[did you mean city of Rome?]
 
E

Etaoin Shrdlu

Guest

Urbs Roma is the usual form, as can be seen from Roman coins. Urbs Romae is rare, late and smacks of translation from English or another modern language. Is there a reason why you prefer it?
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
Is there a reason why you prefer it?
For no other reason than because it's the instinct of an English speaker who isn't familiar with the usual Latin construction, I assume.

But yeah, in Latin it's more usual to have the name of the city follow in the same case as the noun urbs. So you say urbs Roma, literally "the city Rome", the logic of this being that the city in question is Rome. It's similar to something like "my friend John". You wouldn't say "my friend of John", because the friend is John, rather than belonging to John or anything like that. In Latin, this logic also applies to cities.

As for the word order, pulcher locus est urbs Roma can perfectly translate to "the city of Rome is a beautiful place".
 

AoM

nulli numeri

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But epexegetic is so fun to say (and type).
 
 

Dantius

Homo Sapiens

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Location:
in orbe lacteo
A&G is boring and would call urbs Romae an appositional genitive
 

john abshire

Well-Known Member

  • Patronus

For no other reason than because it's the instinct of an English speaker who isn't familiar with the usual Latin construction, I assume.

But yeah, in Latin it's more usual to have the name of the city follow in the same case as the noun urbs. So you say urbs Roma, literally "the city Rome", the logic of this being that the city in question is Rome. It's similar to something like "my friend John". You wouldn't say "my friend of John", because the friend is John, rather than belonging to John or anything like that. In Latin, this logic also applies to cities.

As for the word order, pulcher locus est urbs Roma can perfectly translate to "the city of Rome is a beautiful place".
Is it common to put the subject at the end, in this type sentence (with predicate nominative)?
Is it common to put the subject at the end in a sentence with direct object?
e.g.
regem interfecit servus
??
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
Is it common to put the subject at the end, in this type sentence (with predicate nominative)?
Yes, when the context makes things clear. While there isn't much context here, the whole construction of the sentence is a context unto itself, as "The city of Rome is a beautiful place" is somehow a more likely thing to say than "A beautiful place is the city of Rome". I guess that's because it's more usual to state that a definite thing (like "the City of Rome") is such and such kind of thing (indefinite, like "a beautiful place") than the other way round.
Is it common to put the subject at the end in a sentence with direct object?
e.g.
regem interfecit servus
??
It isn't uncommon. Latin word order is flexible.
 
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