Expert: Maria - 3/9/2009

Question
theres this saying that my grandmother always said its "what you risk revels what you value." and I'm looking to get it put on a a plaque in Latin and was wondering if you could translate it for me?


Thank you and have a great day!

Answer
Hello,

your grandmother’s saying  can be translated as follows:

-“Quod adire audes quanti sis ostendit”
(What you risk reveals what you value).

Best regards,
Maria
___________________________________________________
NOTE THAT:

-What = QUOD (relative pronoun in the neuter)

-you risk = ADIRE (infinitive depending on AUDES) AUDES (from AUDEO)

-reveals = OSTENDIT (from OSTENDO)

-what = QUANTI (adverb in the genitive, denoting your value)

-you value = SIS (present subjunctive of SUM, I am)


As you can see, Latin word order can be different from English.
Latin  is in fact an inflected language where syntactical relationships are indicated by the endings of each term, not by the order of the words.