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- "In cenaculo meo mures capto."
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Why is the correct answer "try to grab" when the Latin only has "capto"?
I know Latin fairly fluently and I was wondering the same thing since I'm not as familiar with this word. I believe capto, captare is the frequentative form of the verb capio, capere - to take. So if you are taking frequently, its like you're reaching for it, "trying to grab". A common example of a frequentative in english is commentate instead of comment. It kind of denotes a continuous action.
One I like in Latin is saltare - to dance, which comes from salire - to jump. Jumping continuosly is dancing!
560
Indeed, wiktionary gives
I strive to seize, catch or grasp at
(figuratively) I seek, aim at
More or less it means something like hunt, run after, like we usually do with rodents and pests
The similarity to english terms can be counter-intuitive
If jumping continuously is dance, it seems that they love to dance ska! :-D
n Latin, frequentative verbs show repeated or intense action. They are formed from the supine stem with -tāre/-sāre, -itāre, -titāre/-sitāre added.
- 775
This is interesting, because in Spanish, "captar" (obviously from the same Latin root) indicates having actually caught the thing, not just trying to. Similarly, "capture", in English, expresses having caught something.
What makes this sentence especially entertaining is the male speaker's voice which sounds like an important legislative proclamation.
He sounds the same way when he proclaims, "Stercus sordidum in latrina sedet."
- 571
He is the best, because he is clearly audible, not like the mumbling woman's voice torturing the learners at the beginning of this course.
Triclinium is a dining room in a domus (nice big family house). Cenaculum is an upper story or attic dining room, but it could also be thought of as a single family apartment room I believe. Most Romans lived in fairly small, cramped apartment buildings called "insula" - literally island. Which had several stories and rooms. Or if they had a shop (taberna), it would be on the first floor and their living/dining room would be upstairs
Triclinium is a word meaning three couches, because wealthy Romans would recline while eating on the couches arranged around a table
- 2108
Meo is ablative singular, agreeing with cenaculo. Mures is accusative plural, so if I meant "my mice" I would need to use meos to maintain the noun/adjective agreement. So, "In the dining room I try to grab my mice" would be In cenaculo mures meos capto.
- 2108
No, it usually does but it doesn't have to. You can put the possessive adjective before the noun to emphasise it. So, mures meos is simply "my mice" whereas meos mures would by "my own mice". Latin word order is very flexible.
Better to bring in the dirty weasels, they'll catch them or at least scare them off.
- 2108
I'm not sure whether the audio has been updated but I'm definitely hearing cenaculum rather than cenaculo. I've not noticed this before during my many revisits to this skill..
In other exercises 'cenaculo' is bedroom but that was marked wrong and said "apartment" was the answer they were looking for.
I think you may be confusing the words "cubiculum - bedroom" and "cenaculum - apartment/ upper dining room". Think a one room apartment upstairs in a building above a shop
So why is it my dining room and not my mice? As in: In the dining room, I try to grab my mice.
in Latin, every noun and adjective has three properties: Case, Number, and Gender. Case gives the function of the noun in the sentence. Number is whether it is singular or plural. and gender is masculine, feminine, or neuter. Adjectives must match the noun they modify in all three properties. In this sentence, meo is ablative, singular and masculine, so it must be modifying the word cenaculo which is also ablative, singular and masculine, and cannot modify mures, which is accusative, plural and common (can be either masculine or feminine)
I have never heard of anyone trying to grab a mouse as a means of "hunting" or "trapping" them
Earlier in the course, is "captare" not translated as "to grab at"? Not "try to grab at"? Am I remembering this wrong? There was a unit with thieves grabbing at ones dog.
If they did, then it was probably an attempt to imply the "tries to" sense without actually using the verb "to try;" and then it would have been changed, because it's likely to be missed by most students.
In any case, the actual "to grab (something)" is (aliquid) capiō, capere, cēpī, captum, while this is (aliquid) captō, captāre, captāvī, captātum.
I'm thouroughly confused. Instead of "I try to grab" I put "capture" and it was marked incorrect. Is this because it is considered a synonym and not the direct translation?
"capto" means to grab or capture, there is no ""I try"" in that sentence. Please fix the hole excersice as is filled with the same mistake over and over
- 2108
See my reply to Gennaro568019 elsewhere in the discussion. The top definition given by the OLD is "To try to touch or take hold of, grasp at".
Given that "capto" is a single word, "grab at" may be a more intuitive construction than separating it into two verbs.
- 2108
A tutor once pointed out to me that with Latin having a relatively small vocabulary, its words have to work very hard. The OLD gives 9 definitions for capto.
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To try to touch or take hold of, grasp at.
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To catch at, (try to) draw in (air, breath; also, water); to seek to catch (wind).
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To make for (a place); to try to reach (with a missile). To seek (shade, coolness, and other conditions).
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To try to find or obtain, seek out. To look for or seize (an opportunity).
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To seek, aim at. To seek to arouse or produce (in others).
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To go in for, affect, aspire after (an attitude, course of action, etc.).
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To try to capture. To seek to entrap (by military action). To seek to catch by hunting, fishing, etc. To try to catch (lovers, etc,).
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To try to catch out or get the better of in argument, etc.
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To try to win over or captivate, entice. To court the favour of, in the hope of securing a legacy; to seek (a legacy) by this means.
It put all the words in for me, as in the words started out on the lines where you awnser
I think it should be accepted to have "meo" referred to the mouse, if its the same genre of cenaculo, because the order in the phrase is free
- 2108
See my answer above to vQIxlEsW for why meo has to refer to the dining room rather than the mice.
http://archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wordz.pl?keyword=capto
"try/long/aim for, desire; entice; hunt legacy; try to catch/grasp/seize/reach;"
I think it does have that meaning. Maybe you mean a different whitaker though
Capto, captare is the frequentative form of capio, capere, so to take/grab often is to "try to catch"
