Expert: Maria - 2/10/2010

Question
Could you please translate "Do it right the first time" for me. One of our prize sponsors has requested this as part of the presentation, and we don't have any classical linguists available.

Thank you so much

Answer
Hello,

"Do it right the first time" can be translated correctly as “Iam primum id accurate fac !" as well as “Iam primum omnia fac accurate ! ”.

See below for grammatical analysis.

Have a nice day,
Maria
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Note that:

-Do =FAC (2nd.person singular, imperative of FACIO, I do)

-it = ID (direct object, accusative neuter of the pronoun IS) or OMNIA (literally, “all things”)

-right = ACCURATE (adverb)

-the first time = IAM PRIMUM (adverb)

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  inflectional  endings, not by the order of the words.