KrissiK Posted January 28, 2017 Share Posted January 28, 2017 When translating from English to Latin, when does one use the actual pronoun "ego" as the subject as opposed to just letting the subject be part of the conjugated verb at the end of the sentence. As I do my translation work through Henle I see no rhyme or reason to it. Sometimes I'll use "ego" and then the answer key doesn't have it. Now I'm doing a translation from Latin to English and "ego" is all over the place. Anyone? Anyone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chelli Posted January 28, 2017 Share Posted January 28, 2017 We're using Getting Started with Latin and it taught that "ego" is used for emphasis. In English it might be a situation where someone says, "This cake is really good. It tastes like the cake from XYZ bakery. I bet someone brought this cake to the party from there. You respond with, "I made the cake." In Latin "ego" would be added to the verb I made to emphasize that indeed it was "I" who performed the action. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrissiK Posted January 29, 2017 Author Share Posted January 29, 2017 We're using Getting Started with Latin and it taught that "ego" is used for emphasis. In English it might be a situation where someone says, "This cake is really good. It tastes like the cake from XYZ bakery. I bet someone brought this cake to the party from there. You respond with, "I made the cake." In Latin "ego" would be added to the verb I made to emphasize that indeed it was "I" who performed the action. Ego for emphasis.Sort of like the difference between saying "I won't do that." and "I will NOT do that". In English we will sometimes drop the contraction in favor of each word, when making an emphatic statement. I figure the Romans used this is a similar way. Sometimes with Henle answer keys I just roll my eyes. At first it bugged me, but the further into the language I get (not very far yet) the more I realize that there can be multiple correct translations, especially for the more complicated sentences. Language is a beautiful mess like that, even the dead ones! That's what I thought. And that's the way I was using it, but then I would start checking my work and I wasn't matching up to the answer key. So, I thought I'd ask. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2_girls_mommy Posted January 30, 2017 Share Posted January 30, 2017 I think of it as I can say "I love you" without the pronoun. But if someone wants to know who loves someone, I would use the pronoun for emphasis because that was the emphasis of the sentence. 'Who loves you?" 'I love you." (not him, I do!!) That's how my brain does it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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