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I teach myself Latin. What is the best translation of the sentence "Would you like to visit Paris?" into Latin? Suggestions:

  1. Paris visitare vis? (Google Translate version)

  2. Paridem visitare vis? (my translation, with accusative)

Thank you.

EDIT: 3) Lutetiam visitare vis?

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    You might want to check out how awful Google Translate.
    – cmw ♦
    Dec 4, 2021 at 18:54
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    #2 would involve a visit to a person named Paris, but I assume you mean the city?
    – cnread
    Dec 4, 2021 at 20:33
  • I am asking one person if they would like to travel to a city called Paris.
    – Jan
    Dec 4, 2021 at 21:03
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    Are the questions you're asking questions that you thought up yourself? Questions from Duolingo? Questions from a textbook? Your progress is going to be extremely slow if you have to depend on SE to check your sentences one at a time. You might want to get a textbook that includes answers.
    – user3597
    Dec 5, 2021 at 14:31

1 Answer 1

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First, as I mentioned in the comment, Google Translate is not great. Don't expect to get grammatically correct sentences from it consistently. Case in point: it leaves Paris uninflected.

When you have a yes or no question, the enclitic -ne can be attached to the emphasized word (often the verb, but any important word can take it), which is then typically found at the beginning. So, visne... is how you could start off the sentence: "Do you want..."

The ancient city of Paris was called in Latin Lutetia. The verb visitare will take an accusative as an object, so Lutetiam visitare is grammatically correct. As cnread points out, Paris is the name of the son of Priam and Hecuba, that enemy of Menelaus who left back to Troy with Helen. If you're visiting him, it would be Paridem.

cnread points out one more thing: for a place, the better verb to use is visere (alternative, invisere is a good choice, too).

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    I'm not sure visitare is the correct verb, at least if the target of the textbook that's being used is classical Latin (and indeed a sentence that talks about visiting Paris suggests a more modern, conversational target). According to OLD, although it can mean simply 'to visit' when the object is a person, it's otherwise a true frequentative, meaning 'to see frequently or habitually.' For just an isolated visit to a place, it appears to me that the verb should be visere instead.
    – cnread
    Dec 5, 2021 at 20:46
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    @cnread Huh, I didn't see that in L&S. For sure visere (or even invisere) is the better verb. I'll have to see if anyone slipped and used it with a place, but it does strike me odd that it would be OK-ish with a person and incorrect with a place.
    – cmw ♦
    Dec 5, 2021 at 20:59

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