More latin help

[GIR]

Thanks for the help earlier. I took Latin for 3 years in high school, and now that I’m learning Spanish in college, my latin is getting better (I think). Tell me what you think of this passege I wrote. I’m using some of the rules i learned in spanish primarily the difference between the perfect in imperfect, and subjunctive and indicative, as well as the formation of noun clauses, adjective clauses, and adverbial clauses. Since I’m using the intuitiion I developed from speaking spanish, it may not sound right, btu I want to know how much I can carry over into latin.

Ii ad ecclesiam ut oraverim, sed adveniente, vidi quod portae clauderent.

Mihi placet .

Quando esurio, edo.

Hic televisor major isto televisore, sed ille maximus est.

 

[MarkThompson]

I’m by no stretch of the imagination a Latin scholar, but I will give your first sentence a shot. (The others looked fine.)

Ii ad ecclesiam ut oraverim, sed adveniente, vidi quod portae clauderent.

I would have: Ii ad ecclesiam ut orarem, sed appropinquans ostium vidi clausum.

A perfect-tense indicative verb should be followed by an imperfect or pluperfect subjunctive clause. So, Ii ad ecclesiam ut orarem. I would also think adveniens rather than adveniente, or even better appropinquans. The remaining phrase depends on precisely what you’re trying to say. Porta refers more to a city gate, or by extension a doorway or gateway, than to a specific door, so I would probably use ostium or ianua and have ostium vidi clausum or januam vidi clausam, where the door is accusative and the verb esse is not expressed. The sense given is loosely somewhere between “I saw the closed door” and “I saw that the door was closed.”

Pro tip: study the sequence of tenses in subjunctive clauses. Present, future, or fut perf indicative clauses are followed by subjunctive clauses in the present or perfect. Perfect, (name removed by moderator)erfect, or pluperfect indicative clauses (including the historical present) are followed by the imperfect or pluperfect subjunctive.

Second tip: avoid the temptation to render English “that” with Latin quod unless necessary. Let Latin grammar do the work for you rather than attempting this word-for-word imposition of English grammar on the Latin. Quod clauses like yours, while serviceable, strike my ear as highly inauthentic.