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- Topic: Latin >
- "Non puer sed vir scribit."
22 Comments
1051
In English, this sounds awkward and unnatural. Is this a common construction in Latin?
Agreed. In English we are more likely to put the verb with the first part. The boy is not writing, but the man. However, in Latin this is quite common.
I'll grant it's an uncommon way of phrasing it in English, but I have heard this construction before in certain contexts.
The Latin is fine here, but the English would be more along the lines of "The boy is not writing, but the man is."
I recommend "It is not a/the boy but a/the man who writes/is writing". Or perhaps even more naturally in English: "The boy does/is not write/writing but the man does/is."
Give more options for good translations on this one: "The boy does not write but the man does"
Write that, wait for the lesson to reject it, and flag it so you can report "My answer should be accepted." That is the only way to bring it to the attention of the course contributors. Simply saying it in here will not reach them.
- 232
English seems to prefer the positive first. I tried The man writes but the boy does not and it was accepted.
Probably... but punctuation came along pretty late in the game. Hell, spaces between words was a revolutionary innovation. Ya just gotta keep it loose and kinda go with the flow.
"The boy does not, but the man writes." What is wrong with this translation?
That's a rather unusual way to phrase it, so the volunteer course contributors never thought to add it to the answer database.
I just didn't put the word the after before man but it didn't accept it. there isn't one in latin so i figured it wouldn't make a difference but they marked it wrong. is this a mistake or should i have put "the"? i'm somewhat new to latin
Latin does not have articles, but English does. You need to use them where they're appropriate.
that's wired
Not that weird if you had mistakes that you didn't notice. From now on, please either copy and paste or take a screenshot of your full, exact answer so we can help you see why it marked you wrong.
