Expert: Maria - 8/29/2011

Question
hi could you translate
"to love is nothing, to be loved is something, to love and be loved is everything"
thank you for your help and time :)

Answer
Hello,

as I suppose you are looking for a Latin translation,please note that the correct Latin version of “To love is nothing, to be loved is something, to love and be loved is everything” is the following:
-“Amare nihil esse potest, amari est certe aliquid, amare et amari est vere optimum”.

See grammatical analysis below.

Best regards,
Maria
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Note that in “Amare nihil esse potest, amari est certe aliquid, amare et amari est vere optimum”:

-AMARE (active voice,infinitive present  of AMO, I love) = to love

-NIHIL ( neuter pronoun) = nothing

-ESSE (present infinitive of SUM, I am) POTEST (3rd.person singular,  present of POSSUM, I can) literally meaning “can be”.

-AMARI  (passive voice, present infinitive of AMO) =  to be loved

-EST (3rd.person singular, present of SUM) = is

-CERTE (adverb) = certainly. Note that Latin needs this adverb.

-ALIQUID (neuter pronoun) = something

-AMARE (see above)

-ET = and

-AMARI (see above)

-EST (see above)

-VERE(adverb) = truly.Note that Latin needs this adverb.

-OPTIMUM (neuter adjective) = “everything” in the sense of “the best thing”.


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.