Expert: Maria - 7/1/2010

Question
QUESTION: Hi Maria!  I'd like to know what "I conquer difficulties" translates into.  I was talking to my grandpa about family mottos and he said that was ours.  Thanks so much for your help!

ANSWER: Hello,

“Omnes supero difficultates” is the correct Latin translation of the motto “I conquer difficulties”.

See below for grammatical analysis.

Best regards,
Maria
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Note that:

-I conquer = SUPERO (1st.person singular, present indicative)

-difficulties = DIFFICULTATES (direct object in the accusative plural of DIFFICULTAS, 3rd.declension). Latin adds the adjective OMNES (literally, “all”;accusative plural of OMNIS agreed with DIFFICULTATES) to point out that this family conquers all  kinds of difficulties.

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


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: What does "ardua/ ardura/ arudura vinco" mean?  Thanks again for answering the last question.

Answer
Hello,

The correct Latin phrase is “Ardua vinco” meaning literally “I overcome difficult things”, i.e. “I overcome difficulties”.

Therefore “Ardua vinco” is the same as “Omnes supero difficultates”, as they both mean “I conquer difficulties”/ “I overcome difficulties”, though “Ardua vinco” is more concise.

All the best,
Maria
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Note that:

-ARDUA (direct object, accusative neuter plural of the adjective ARDUUS) = literally, “difficult things”, i.e. “difficulties”.

-VINCO (1st.person singular, present indicative) = I overcome/ conquer