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- "Viae in urbe sunt sordidae."
22 Comments
Combined with our new word "stercus", this would be a good time to reinforce California in our vocabulary.
I think the word order better lends itself to the desired translation ("The streets in the city are dirty"). To say, "There are dirty streets in the city," I think it would make more sense to say something like, "Sunt in urbe viae sordidae."
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"There are" as translation of "sunt" was always accepted and the other word order you mentioned was not used in any of exercise (Only as question "Suntne" it stays on the first place). So it should be accepted also here, as we are not learning such differencies.
To be clear, my reply wasn't intended to be related to the Duolingo lessons, but to Latin usage in general. After all, presumably the goal is to read and understand Latin beyond Duolingo.
"The roads in the city are dirty." was marked as wrong. 'Streets' was what they were looking for. Wouldn't 'streets' be 'plateae'?
Now they are accepting both. I don't know the Latin "plateae," but I do know that in English "roads" run between two distant points — two towns, for example. In each of those towns, you'll find "streets:" paved roads lined with houses and other buildings.
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FWIW my dictionary at hand (Pocket Oxford Latin, 1995, 1st ed. 1913), the English-to-Latin entry for "street" has "via, platēa, & "vīcus", in that order (I added the macrons, per the Latin-to-English entries, BTW) -- the E-to-L entry for "road" has "via" & "iter", in that order --
Yes, Street is a place where there is shops, and houses,
a road is something to facilitate the transport.
https://www.vocabulary.cl/english/street-road-difference.htm
"Plata" is a broad way, a big street: an avenue.
Ancient Greek πλατεῖα (plateîa), shortening of πλατεῖα ὁδός (plateîa hodós, “broad way”).
Latin vīcus is given as "village" as the first meaning,
And derivated meanings:
street; quarter, neighbourhood; row of houses
village; hamlet
municipal section or ward, farm
Via can be either a road or a street.
Via:
Road, street or path
Way, method, manner (figuratively)
the right way
(source: wiktionary)
Via is related etymology with Way, wagon, etc (Indo-european root weg)
Via is finally a way...
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Is it just a coincidence that this sentence keeps coming up immediately after "I visit the street" and a sentence about stercus?
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I asked this same question elsewhere: Is it optional in Classical Latin whether or not to release word-final stop consonants (here, the T sound in sunt)? I don't hear the T, do you?
It will always be so when people vote into local and national government the party that promises lower taxes. There will also be no public toilets.
