Expert: Maria - 2/3/2011

Question
I was hoping you would be able to translate "The more we sweat in training the less we bleed in battle" Into ancient Latin. I have heard this for a long time from my wrestling coach and it really inspires me in all aspects of my life. I wanted to make a banner to put on my door so that every time Leave I am inspired to work hard and strive for something everyday day.  If you could help me I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks

Answer
Hello,

here’s the translation you asked me:

-“Quo magis in exercitio sudamus, eo minus in pugna sanguinem  effundimus”

See below for grammatical analysis.

Best regards,
Maria
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Note that:

-The more = QUO MAGIS

-we sweat = SUDAMUS (1st.person plural, present indicative of SUDO, I sweat)

-in = IN (preposition which takes the ablative case)

-training = EXERCITIO (ablative of EXERCITIUM, 2nd.declension)

-the less = EO MINUS

-we bleed = SANGUINEM EFFUNDIMUS ( literally, ‘we emit  blood’ where EFFUNDIMUS [from EFFUNDO] means “we emit”, while SANGUINEM [direct object in the accusative of SANGUIS, 3rd.declension ] means” blood.

-in = IN (see above)

-battle =PUGNA (ablative of PUGNA, 1st.declension)

As you can see, 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.