Expert: Maria - 8/1/2011

Question
Thank you for your answer to my question a few years ago, if you could remember it. Here's a follow-up.

From your translation of "Don't make a promise you can't keep" to "Noli promissum facere quod servare non potes," is it right to derive "Keep your promise" as "Potes quod faceere"? If not, what would be the correct translation?

Thank you very much in advance!

Answer
Hello,

“Keep your promise" translates correctly as follows:

-“Tuum serva promissum”
Or:
-“Promissum serva” (without the possessive  which in Latin can be omitted).

Read more below.

Best regards,
Maria
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Note that:

-Keep = SERVA (2nd.person singular, imperative of the verb SERVO, I keep)

-your = TUUM (accusative neuter singular of the possessive TUUS agreed with PROMISSUM). This possessive can also be omitted.

-promise = PROMISSUM (direct object in the accusative of the neuter noun PROMISSUM, 2nd.declension).

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

With regard to “Potes quod facere”, it means “What you can make/do” and then does not correspond to “Keep your promise”.