Steps for Success in Analysis and Translation

Dave Spotts 2007

I often require students to “analyze” a passage of text they are reading. Sometimes it is one word or just a few words, sometimes it is a longer passage, such as a sentence. A few students are still struggling with knowing what to do. If you are one of them, follow these simple guidelines, do a thorough analysis of a sentence a day for a few weeks, and you'll be in excellent condition.

1) Read the sentence carefully from beginning to end. Look for groups of words which make sense together grammatically.

2) Bracket any prepositional phrases. These work just like prepositional phrases in English except there are a few prepositions, most notably “cum,” which can tend to have an adjective describing the object of the preposition located right before the preposition instead of after it.

3) If there are multiple clauses, identify them as main or dependent clauses. Again, this works just like in English, so it should cause you no difficulty.

4) For nouns, adjectives, or pronouns, identify the words by their gender, case and number. Your paradigms should be memorized sufficiently that you can do this on sight immediately. Then consult a chart of likely case uses as needed to give a logical decision about the function of the noun, adjective or pronoun. For instance, if a word is nominative, it is either a subject or it describes a subject. If it is genitive it is probably a possessive, though in Greek it may be an object of a preposition, and it is quite possible in either Latin or Greek that it would show separation from something else. In Latin a genitive singular can show location. Decide how the word is being used in the sentence and assign it a function.

5) For verbs, identify the word as completely as you are able based on grammar you have studied. Verbs have tense, voice, mood, person and number.

6) For prepositions, identify what case the preposition requires for its object and make sure you have an object of the preposition in that case.

7) For other parts of speech, identify the part of speech.

8) Translate the group of words carefully, making sure each word is used in your English translation in the same way you analyzed it.

Students who want to practice this skill should give a Latin sentence, their analysis, and an English translation of it occasionally on the Latin Forum, asking others to check their work. This sharpens everyone who works with it, as it trains us all to think critically about how the language is working.