Expert: Maria - 6/6/2010

Question
I have a rough translation for "Like a pheonix, I will rise from the ashes" it is: Ut pheonix, resurge ex cineribus.

Is this right?

Answer
Hello,

the correct translation of "Like a phoenix, I will rise from the ashes" is the following:

-“Ut phoenix, ex cineribus resurgam”.

As  for “Ut pheonix, resurge ex cineribus”, it contains two errors, i.e. the misspelling “pheonix” instead of the correct “phoenix”, and the imperative “Resurge” meaning “Rise” as a command, instead of the future “resurgam” just meaning “I will rise”.

In short, “Ut phoenix, resurge ex cineribus” means “Like a phoenix, rise from the ashes!”, while “Ut phoenix, ex cineribus resurgam” means “Like a phoenix, I will  rise from the ashes”.

Have a nice day,
Maria
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Note that:

-Like = UT
-a phoenix = PHOENIX (nominative case, 3rd.declension)
-I will  rise = RESURGAM (1st.person singular, future of RESURGO, I rise)
-from = EX (preposition which takes the ablative)
-the ashes = CINERIBUS (ablative plural of CINIS, 3rd.declension)

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