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- "Marcus in America natus est,…
"Marcus in America natus est, sed Romae habitat."
Translation:Marcus was born in America, but lives in Rome.
51 Comments
687
How would you say 'Marcus is born.. ?' Odd perhaps, but if trying to tell that little Marcus is born in this very moment?
- 116
The audio on this has a long pause before "sed Romae habitat." I don't know if anyone else is having this issue, but I kept constructing the sentence before I knew the audio was done, then it would cut off the rest. This issue comes up sporadically in this bate version, and I wanted to give some feedback.
Thank you, yes, I have had that problem too. Also, in many sentences where there are tiles, if you start clicking on them before the whole sentence has been dictated, the sporadic recordings they have made of some of the single words cut off the recording of the whole sentence.
Same thing happened to me. I was in a hurry, so typed the first part, and clicked submit. It completed the sentence after that and I lost my streak.
No. English is just a bit strange with 'is' and 'was'. Edit: I'm sorry I can't explain it better right now, my mind is overstimulated.
You were downvoted but you are right, English is the exception. (even German uses something like "I have been born" "I became "born". (Ich wurde geboren).
The present tense + state of being born, is the rule in Romance languages. It's a state, like in German.
Creo que "natus est" sería el equivalente a un tiempo compuesto en castellano.
I found on the Internet that was = erat, is = est. Is this an exception?
- 1177
There is a kind of difference in the opinion how Latin tenses match English tenses. In my opinion natus est = is born, nascitur = is being born (now), natus erat = was born (before some event in the past).
Natus est = perfect - was born or has been born. Natus erat = pluperfect (past perfect) - had been born. Nascitur = present - is born or is being born.
Either is fine, but the second option is more common (with verb last).
If Marcus was born in the past the tense of the verb would then have to be changed, would it not? If I am correct in assuming that "natus est" is the perfect passive particle and thus the subject (Marcus) is receiving the verb (being born) then that would translate as "Marcus has been born in America, but is living in Rome". The tenses in this passage confuse me especially in the realm of was. Maybe someone would be so kind as to clear this up for me. I also would like to add that if they were trying to make it say in Latin what it says in English they would not need the perfect system and could stay with in the present system simply using the passive voice on its own. This is confusing to new learners because the use of this verb is never discussed and I can not see why it would translate as so. Please provide me with any insight you may have, thank you.
The construction we see here in Latin has either present perfect or simple past meaning (it is the only way to express the simple past). Therefore, natus est is the usual way to say "was born." There is no implication that Marcus now lives elsewhere. The present nascitur would be used to mean "is being born right now."
Why are the voices speaking so slowly? I keep getting caught, thinking the "type what you hear" is finished, only to discover there is yet another phrase coming. This particular exercise just did that to me. Soooo slooooow.... does not sound like natural speech at all.
I am doing several languages simultaneously here on Duo and this one is the only one that does that to me.
Is the speed of speech part of it? (he ask doubtfully)
I do want to say that 1) unlike most other languages here, all speakers accents agree (more or less, baring their own native accents, which can't help popping through), 2) the pronunciation is extremely clear.
So Latin matches English in expressing the verb to be born through a combination of verb 'to be' and the verb born, and not Spanish through only one verb like nacer?
More or less; in Latin, the verb nāscor, nāscī, nātus sum is a so-called "deponent" verb, where the passive forms (like English "to be born") are used syntactically to express an active meaning. In the transition from Latin to the Romance languages, these deponent verbs became regular verbs for the most part (some became so-called "pronominal" or "reflexive" verbs).
English, by contrast, doesn't have a verb to directly express being born, so uses the passive of another verb (to bear) as a construction. The equivalent verb in Latin to "bear" or "beget" is pariō, parere, peperī, partum. So if "I was born" translated to "ego partus/parta sum" it would match the English.
The locative case is not used except with names of cities, small islands, and a handful of specific words such as domus. Since America is a country/continent name, you need in Americā.
Could you alternately translate this as "Marcus is American-born" or "Marcus is native to America" ? Just looking for ways to wrangle the Latin logic into my Anglophone brain :)
"Is American-born" would probably simply be in Americā nātus est. As for "native" you could probably use nātīvus or nātūrālis Americae, America being in the dative.
I have a different question.
Why is "in America", in America, but "in Rome", Romae ?
Why isn't it, "in Rome", or "Americae"?
- 2093
"Romae" is in the locative case. Certain place names use the locative to say "in [place]," but the rest just use "in" with the ablative.
More specifically, from Wikipedia:
The Latin locative case was only used for the names of cities, "small" islands and a few other isolated words.
Being a city, "Roma" takes the locative. "America" isn't a city or island and so uses "in."
- 1795
Tried to write the slang word "'murica" but Duolingo doesn't recognise the word.
I tried writing "the United States," but Duo didn't recognise it. Most other languages will happily take any of "the United States," "the US" or "America" as complete synonyms.
- 135
If Duo did not write United States, then we are not to either. We are translating words, not concepts. Hope this helps!
On the other hand, we do translate salūtātiōnēs facere to "visit the patron," which is clearly translating concepts, not words.
I'm not complaining about not being able to actually write "the United States" instead of America; after all, we could all be pedants and say that Marcus could have been born in Chile or in Newfoundland, which are as much in America as New York, Boston or Philadelphia (PA, not Jordan). What I actually meant was that if it will not take a common synonym for the country which they do actually mean, they will most definitely not take a jocular rendering like the OP reported trying.
This one was odly enough already completed befor i could actually anser it
- 2093
You use a different ending based on the subject of the sentence. Just as in English we say "I live" but "He lives," or even "I am / You are / He is," in Latin we apply endings like this: "ego habito / tu habitas / is,ea,id habitat / nos habitamus / vos habitatis / ei,eae,ea habitant." Since "Marcus" belongs in that third-person-singular category of "is/ea/id," we use "habitat" here.
In 'Romae' how is it known that the ending is the diphthong /aɪ/ and not separately voiced 'a e'. Curious, as there seems to be some debate on how Latin ought to be pronounced, and, Church Latin is different again. Any ideas, anyone?
There are whole books written about how it is known that ae was pronounced /aɪ/ and not /ɛ/ in Caesar's time, at least; suffice to say that German Kaiser cannot have been borrowed from a word pronounced /tʃɛsar/.
On the other hand, the language of St Augustine and St Jerome has as much of a right to call itself Latin as the language of Cicero and Caesar, and the former two men certainly pronounced ae as /ɛ/. So you can say that both pronunciations are equally valid, but you have to pick a specific variety to teach; the one this course uses is a best-guess approximation (and a very, very good guess indeed) of how Cicero and Caesar spoke — at least when they were in the Senate.
So if you want to actually use the Latin of the Vulgate, or the one of Publius Valerius Publicola (though that one is quite a bit less material to use) then you will have to fill in the blanks, just like a guy in Mexico City wanting to learn Australian accent can't simply go to a local English course: they all teach General American. He can, however, learn General American and then try to study by himself the accent and vocabulary used in Melbourne or Adelaide or wherever he likes.
Just for fun I used 'resides' instead of 'lives' and was more wrong. Nun this is wrong!
You need to use the Report Button to suggest missing translations. Posting them here doesn't help.
- 135
Listen closely and the speaker enunciates "sed a Romae" Romae was incorrectly made a 3 syllable word. "Aromae" means spice...
