Expert: Maria - 11/27/2011

Question
so i've been searching around the internet for a translation to"stay forever strong",but websites give me different translations.i wanna know the right translation to latin.ive been wanting to engrave this phrase on a picture frame of me and my daughter,since i'm a single mother and seeing this would help me alot.i would really appreciate hearing from you.

Answer
Hello,

The correct translation for “Stay forever strong” is “Fortis esto semper” where the imperative “esto” is in the 2nd.person singular, as I am guessing that such a phrase is addressed to only one person, that is to yourself.
Read more below.

Best regards to you and your daughter,
Maria
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Note that:

-Stay = ESTO (2nd.person singular, imperative of the verb SUM, I am)
-forever =SEMPER
-strong = FORTIS (nominative of this adjective).

As Latin has a distinct second person singular and plural form, if you wanted “Stay forever strong” to be addressed to more than one person, you should say: ”Fortes estote semper” where FORTES is the nominative plural of FORTIS and ESTOTE is the 2nd.person plural of SUM.

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