Subject: Latin help, Part III
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Posted on: 2015-06-13 05:31:00 UTC

OK then. To catch everyone up:

Translatin: tutis illorum vos diligo , proeliator illi quisnam can't pugna pro themselves , angelus ut vigilo super totus.

English (after DawnFire bravely strove to make sense of GTranslate’s translation of the Translatin): protector of those you love, champion/warrior of those who cannot fight for themselves, an angel to watch over everyone.

We’re two parts in, and our running translation so far is defensrix illorum quos diligis, propugnatrix illorum qui pro se non pugnare possunt

One last part to go: angelus ut vigilo super totus.

9) angelus
That’s the word for “angel”. Absolutely no problem here.

10) ut
The word is correct; ut is the word for “to” when it is used to introduce certain types of clauses. (If you know French, think of this ut as akin to the French afin que.) However, any student of Latin knows to be wary when ut rears its head, as it usually requires the upcoming verb to be in the subjunctive mood. Of course, if GTranslate cannot even get the indicative mood right, don’t even put your hopes up for seeing a correctly-conjugated subjunctive.

11) vigilo
Again, lazy translating. Vigilo is the verb for “watch,” but I reiterate that GTranslate didn’t even try to conjugate it: vigilo means "I watch."

Question is: what do we need to conjugate this verb to?

To figure this out, let’s unpack the English a bit. The full sentence reads, in relevant part, “[Y]ou shall be … an angel to watch over everyone.” The sense is “you shall be an angel so that you may watch over everyone.” In other words, vigilo needs to be conjugated to second person singular present subjunctive active. That is vigiles.

12) super
Wrong word. “Super” means “over” in the sense of “on top of.” Of course, this is not what we are looking for here; we want the preposition that is part of the verb phrase “to keep watch over [someone].” Here, I will admit that I do not know for sure, but my best guess is pro. If someone is willing to confirm or correct me, I'd gladly appreciate it.

13) totus
Wrong word. Totus means “all” in the sense of “entirety.” We want “all” in the sense of “everyone.” That is the word omnes. The object of the preposition pro must be in the ablative case, though, so omnes declines to omnibus.

Fit the words in their proper places, and (assuming that I used the proper preposition in this last part) we have all three titles properly translated: defensrix illorum quos diligis, propugnatrix illorum qui pro se non pugnare possunt, angelus ut vigiles pro omnibus.

And with that, class dismissed!

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