Expert: Maria - 4/13/2005

Question
Dear Maria

Thank's for the quick answer :)
concerning the phrase

No pain no gain - could it also be translated "patiendo acquire"- or what is the exactly meaning of this?

=0) Heidi


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Followup To
Question -
Dear Maria

I'll like to ask how you translate

No pain no gain

into Latin?

And a second question

In aeternum vive


can this phrase only be understood in one way (meaning "Live forever")?

I ask you because I consider using one of these two phrases in a tatoo

No pain no gain
or
In aeternum vive

- so I just want to be sure about their exact meaning

Hope to hear from you soon

Greetings from Heidi, Denmark

Answer -
Dear Heidi,

Glad to help you.

So,  the old sport's adage "No pain no gain" can be translated into Latin as follows:

"Nihil sine magno labore"
[meaning literally : “Nothing without great effort”, i.e. “No pain no gain”.]

Please note that in this phrase NIHIL is ‘nothing'; SINE is ‘without'; MAGNO (ablative) is ‘great'; LABORE (ablative) is ‘effort'.

There is of course a literal translation which however is less appropriate.Anyway it reads :

”Nullus labor, nullus fructus”
where NULLUS is ‘no'; LABOR is ‘pain'; FRUCTUS is ‘gain'.


As for the Latin sentence “ In aeternum vive”, it means exactly :“Live forever”, as you already said.

In fact IN AETERNUM is ‘forever' and VIVE(imperative, 2nd.person singular) is ‘live'.

Greetings from Italy.
Maria


Answer
Hi  again,

The phrase “ Patiendo acquire”  is grammatically correct as PATIENDO (ablative of the gerund) means literally  “ by enduring” , while ACQUIRE( imperative, 2nd.person singular) means “ Gain” (imperative of the verb ‘to gain'), but in the sense of ‘to earn'. Moreover it would be better to use the Latin future – ACQUIRES (you will gain)-instead of the imperative.

Anyway , this translation  sounds a bit strange in Latin, but most of all it does not fully match the sentence “No pain, no gain”.

I think therefore it's better to use the Latin phrase I've already suggested, i.e. :
“Nihil sine magno labore “
or more concisely  :
“Nil sine labore”.

Also, you could say:
-“Labor omnia vincit”(Virgil, Georgics, I, 144) meaning “Toil overcomes all difficulties”.

Have a nice day.
Maria