loqu Latine

[sa wulfs]

Salvete. Linguam graecam non intellego, itaque nescio quod scripsistis.

quaestio mea nova de vocabulo 'coquus/cocus' est. In Curso Latino Cambridge coquus dicitur homo quis cibum parat, quis in culina laborat. In 'Linguam Latinam' ab Orberg hic homo cocus dicitur.

Suntne differentiae inter haec dua vocabula?

Gratias ago. Valete!

Maybe that's related to quum > cum?

[loqu]

Fortasse. Non censeo magnam differentiam esse, sed scire volo si haec verba in differentibus temporibus dicta sunt an simul.

[KingHarvest]

Salvete. Linguam graecam non intellego, itaque nescio quod scripsistis.

quaestio mea nova de vocabulo 'coquus/cocus' est. In Curso Latino Cambridge coquus dicitur ab homine qui cibum parat, qui in culina laborat. In 'Lingua Latina' illius Orberg hic ab homine cocus dicitur.

Suntne differentiae inter haec dua vocabula?

Gratias ago. Valete!

Quis is the interrogative pronoun "who?," as in, "Who went to dinner?" Not like "He is the man who went to dinner." I'm also not sure whether you're using hic as "here" or "this." If it's "here," it really should be at the beginning of the sentence.

As for your question, cocus and coquus are both perfectly acceptable Classical Latin. I don't have the OLD at hand, but I would suspect coquus to be a bit more archaic.

Fortasse. Non puto magnam differentiam esse, sed scire volo utrumque haec verba variis in temporibus* dicta esse* an simul.

*I was going to change this to aetatibus/saeculis, but then I wasn't sure whether you meant different times as in different occasions, which would be varios ob/propter rationes
*I believe this should be esse, but I'll check when I get home.

[loqu]

Gratias ago quod me correxisti.

I don't really understand why that 'ab' should appear. I intended to say 'In the Cambridge Latin Course the man who prepares the food is called coquus'. I think I was just wrong with the verb, right? If I had used appellare, would it have been right? (hic homo coquus appellatur).

Aetatibus is what I meant, thanks.

I understand it's esse if utrumque introduces an infinitive clause, but I don't understand why utrumque is used here; is it the proper way to express a dilemma, a choice between two options? I had a hard time trying to find in my grammar book how to introduce a substantive clause with a dubitative verb, such in 'I don't know whether blahblah'.

[KingHarvest]

Gratias ago quod me correxisti.

I don't really understand why that 'ab' should appear. I intended to say 'In the Cambridge Latin Course the man who prepares the food is called coquus'. I think I was just wrong with the verb, right? If I had used appellare, would it have been right? (hic homo coquus appellatur).

Aetatibus is what I meant, thanks.

I understand it's esse if utrumque introduces an infinitive clause, but I don't understand why utrumque is used here; is it the proper way to express a dilemma, a choice between two options? I had a hard time trying to find in my grammar book how to introduce a substantive clause with a dubitative verb, such in 'I don't know whether blahblah'.

Ahh, I thought you were saying, "coquus/cocus" was said by the man. homo should have come before dicitur, which is what led to my confusion.

Utrumque...an... is one way that, "whether...or..." can be expressed in Latin. seu...seu (or sive is an alternative form of seu) is another way that it can be expressed, but I don't think it can be used as indirect speech dependent on a main verb like was done here.

[Alatius]

homo should have come before dicitur, which is what led to my confusion.

What do you mean with "should have come before"? Surely there is nothing wrong with the word order in "coquus dicitur homo".

[KingHarvest]

It's not wrong, but it makes it more clear and less ambiguous that homo is the subject. In fact, it would probably be better to have dicitur and coquus after the relative clause.

[loqu]

I'm just desperate because there are 5 words I can't get right.

I usually have no trouble with Latin vocabulary since it's just old Spanish (most of the time), but these 5 words are making me crazy. They keep appearing in my flashcards software and I repeat them every day, but I keep confusing them.

I found them in my Orberg course, I looked for them in Lewis&Short and later in a Latin-German dictionary. But they just seem to have different random meanings and I can't get them into my mind.

These words are demum, denique, donec, dumtaxat and dummodo.

I guess I can't deal with them but I just wanted to express my frustration somewhere.

[loqu]

Estne supinum passivum*? Explano:

- esum veni (I came to eat, vine a comer). Supinum normale.

Estne compositio ad dicendum "I came to be eaten"? Num verbum "esse" nullum supinum habet?

Scio questionem hanc stulta videri posse, me paenitet.

* Note: how can I say 'is there' ? I keep on reading my sentence and I read 'is the supine passive?'. This drives me nuts.

[KingHarvest]

No, there's no passive supine, it can only be active. What you wrote is, "Is there..." When a sentence is existential, Latin generally prefers to have the est/sunt near the beginning. If you had written "supinumne est passivum" it would be more likely be interpreted as "Is the supine passive."

[loqu]

sicut semper gratias tibi ago. Ideo si dicere volo "I came to be eaten", compositionene substituta uti debeo? "Veni ut edar", recte? Tristissimus sum, supinum amo!

[KingHarvest]

*veni ut tegerer.

[Babelfish]

tegerer - to be eaten? Not "to be covered, protected, ..."?

[KingHarvest]

I have no idea why I wrote tegerer, I meant to write ederer...

[Babelfish]

Comprehensus est nunc

[loqu]

Salvete amici.

Non credo me hanc quaestionem latine proponere posse. Itaque anglice interrogo:

I'm having trouble with the verb begin/start (I even have it in English), in Spanish they are only one verb: empezar (or synonym comenzar, both equivalent). But as far as I know they have two meanings: a transitive and an intransitive one.

So far I have used incipere in Latin for that verb, but it sounds somehow transitive to me. In a sentence like the film begins at 7 (intransitive), would it still be correct to use incipere? Which verb should I use instead?

Spero ut proximam quaestionem latine proponere possim.

Valete.

[KingHarvest]

Yes, it can be used intransitively. Coepi is another very common verb that means "to begin, start."

[Æren]

We are taught that this verb has only perfect- coepi, coepisse.

[Babelfish]

I didn't even think about "begin/start" having a transitive and intransitive meanings... Good point, loqu. I guess it's because Hebrew doesn't distinguish those meanings - and according to Oxford's Advanced Learners Dictionary, neither does English, apparently - it states clearly that "there is little difference in meanings between these two verbs" and says nothing about transitivity.

@Æren: yes, I've seen it mentioned in several places that "incipio, incipere" is used as the present tense of "coepisse".

[KingHarvest]

We are taught that this verb has only perfect- coepi, coepisse.

You were taught wrong then.

quoniam coepit Graecorum mentio Juvenal 3.114.