Latin course for the Virtual School of Languages

The structured approach at translating a sentence

This page shall explain a technique that will help you to translate
any sentence. You don't really need this to translate the texts of 
the first few lessons, but it'll help you a lot when you're 
confronted with a more complex text, especially an original
text. I'll use examples from different stages of learning so that
you don't have to worry about constructions that weren't yet
taught in the lessons:
After lesson 4
After lesson 7
After lesson 11
After lesson 18
The goal: How to translate Ovid

After lesson 4
Example sentence: "Subito adversarii Syrum temptant."
1. question: What is done? The predicate gives the answer: 
   "temptant". It is 3rd person plural and the meaning of the stem 
    is "to try, attack". Using both of this information, we can give 
    the exact English translation of this word: "they try" or "they 
    attack". 
2. question: Who does that? Since "they" is plural, the subject 
    (if there is one) has to be plural, too, and Nominative because 
    all subjects are Nominative. Considering the declensions we know, 
    the ending can be -i or -ae. The only possible subject in this sentence 
    is therefore "adversarii", the opponents. 
    So far the sentence is "The opponents try" or "The opponents attack". 
    If the first is right, we should find an infinitive (try TO DO), however 
    there's none, so it's the second translation: "The opponents attack." 
3. question: Who/what is the object? Whom do they attack? The 
    Accusative object gives the answer. Of the remaining words, just 
    Syrum has an Accusative ending. 
    So the sentence is "The opponents attack Syrus". 
4. Remaining words: The last remaining word, subito, is an adverbial 
    of  time meaning "suddenly". 
    Accordingly, the whole sentence is "Suddenly the opponents attack 
    Syrus." 
5. Improving the sentence: If you want, you can replace words with
    other words that don't change the meaning of the sentence, or you
    can make minor changes to make the sentence "sound better". An
    acceptable change would be for example to replace "opponents"
    with "enemies". 

After lesson 7
Example sentence: "Saepe amicos bonos invito."
1. question: What is done? The predicate is "invito", which is 1st person
    singular of "invitare" -> "to invite". The accurate translation of this
    verb is therefore "I invite" (or "I am inviting", as Latin, unlike English,
    makes no difference between the two).
2. question: Who does that? The answer is "I" and it's already contained
    in the verb.
3. question: Who/what is the object? Whom do I invite? The answer is
    "amicos", which is Accusative plural of "amicus". So far, the sentence
     reads "I invite (the) friends".
     There is another Accusative in the sentence, "bonos". "bonos" derives
     from the adjective "bonus" however, so it can't stand alone. In this
     case, its ending, which is masculine Accusative plural, just like "amicos",
     shows that it belongs to "amicos".
     The sentence is: "I invite (the) good friends"
4. Remaining words: The last remaining word, saepe, means "often". 
    The whole sentence is therefore "I often invite good friends."
5. Improving the sentence:  If you want, you can replace words with
    other words that don't change the meaning of the sentence, or you
    can make minor changes to make the sentence "sound better". An
    acceptable change would be for example to say "my friends" instead
    of just "friends", because it is clear in this context.

After lesson 11
Example sentence: "Romani templa deorum magna diligentia curant."
1. question: What is done? The predicate is "curant". Accurately
    translated, it means "they care for"
2. question. Who does that? The subject of the sentence could be
    either "templa" or "Romani". "diligentia" is not a possible choice
    because it isn't plural and the verb requires a subject in the plural.
    Since "templa" means "the temples", and it is rather unusual that 
    temples care something, "Romani", "the Romans" is the subject. 
3. question: Who/what is the object? What do the Romand care for? The 
    answer is "templa", "the temples." Right after "templa" you see "deorum", 
    a noun in the Genitive case, which tells us something more about the 
    temples: they are "the temples of the gods".
4. Remaining words: The last remaining words, magna diligentia, are
    a noun and an adjective, both in the Ablative case. This means that
    you first have to translate the two words and then find a way for them
    to fit into the sentence. The translation is "big/great diligence/care". A 
    possible translation of the whole sentence is therefore "The Romans
    care for the temples of the gods with great care"
5. Improving the sentence: If you want, you can replace words with
    other words that don't change the meaning of the sentence, or you
    can make minor changes to make the sentence "sound better". A
    possible change would be for example to replace "care" with "diligence"
    or a similar word, because "care" is already used as a verb in this 
    sentence.

After lesson 18
Example sentence: "Tyranni non putant vitam suam beatam esse."
1. question: What is done? The conjugated predicate is "putant", 
    "they think", or rather "non putant", "they don't think".
2. question: Who does that? There's just one word that could be
    Nominative plural in this sentence: "tyranni". So far, the translation
    is "The tyrants don't think".
3. question: What do they think? This question is usually not answered by 
   a single word (e. g. "happy"), but by a clause that begins with "that".
   In Latin, the equivalent is the AcI, which was explained in the grammar
   section of lesson 18. The predicate of the AcI must be "esse", because
   it's the only infinitive in the sentence. The subject of the AcI must be
   a noun in the Accusative case. Since "suam" and "beatam" aren't nouns,
   "vitam" is the subject, "life". So far we have "The tyrants don't think that
   life is". That life is what? An adjective in the same gender, case and 
   number as the noun "vitam" is the answer. There are two: "suam", which
   is a reflexive pronoun referring to the subject of the main clause, the tyrants,
   so its translation is "their", and "beatam", meaning "happy". If we now put
   all these words together, the resulting sentence is "The tyrants don't think
   that their life is happy."
4. There are no words left.
5. Improving the sentence. If you want, change the words of the sentence
    in order to make it sound better.