Need help translating basic Latin!?
Sicilia est insula magna in Europa. Magna est fama Siciliae, sed fortuna Siciliae non bona est. In Sicilia vita est dura. Terra et aqua sunt bonae, sed familiae sunt magnae. Magnae silvae in Sicilia non sunt. Viae non bonae sed parvae sunt. Vita est dura in Sicilia, et fortuna non bona est. Please help!
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- You should be able to figure out the first sentence without help, since most of the words are very similar to their English equivalents. ("Magna" is "big," "large," or "great"--whichever is most appropriate for the context. Just think of "magnify" and "magnitude.") Just remember that there are no articles ("a," "an," or "the") in Latin,so that you'll need to insert them in the appropriate places, and that Latin adjectives usually come after the words they modify. In the second sentence, the only word that doesn't look like its English equivalent is "bona" ("good"). The ending of "Siciliae" makes it genitive, so that the word should be translated "of Sicily." In the fourth sentence, that same ending makes the word nominative plural. The third sentence should be easy. The two adjectives are probably in the vocabulary list for this passage. So when you get to the fifth sentence, you know that it means "Large [somethings] in Sicily not are." Now rearrange the words to make good English, and figure out what "silvae" are. (What does "sylvan" mean in Enlgish?) In the sixth, you can figure out that something (plural) are not good but "parvae." Look at the vocabulary list for "via" and"parva." The last sentence just repeats the third and part of the second, so you can figure it out. Now you know a little more than you did!
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