Skip to the content

John Wesley quote

by richardhall, May 9, 2007

Messages: 4

Language: English

richardhall (User's profile) May 9, 2007, 10:14:22 AM

As a translation exercise I've been having a go at one of my favourite quotes from John Wesley, part of his instruction to early Methodists
“Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.”

I've rendered it:
"Faru tuta la bono vi povas,
Per tutaj la rimedoj vi povas,
Per tutaj la manieroj vi povas,
En tutaj la lokoj vi povas,
Je tutaj la fojoj vi povas,
Al tuta la popolo vi povas,
Dum ĉiam ajn vi povas."

But I'm not at all convinced I've got it right. I'd be grateful for hints!

Thanks in advance.

mnlg (User's profile) May 9, 2007, 10:30:57 AM

Most of your verses are not correct, as you need a correlative to link the two sentences (the full version in English should be "do all the good that you can"):

faru la tutan bonon KIUN vi povas,
per la tutaj rimedoj PER KIUJ vi povas...

However, "tut/a" means "all" as "a whole", whereas in my understanding, the quote means "each and every one":

faru ĉiun bonon kiun vi povas,
per ĉiuj rimedoj per kiuj vi povas...

I think I would have used a different approach, though; here's my very rough, very primitive attempt:

Agu kiel eble plej bone,
per kiel eble plej multaj rimedoj,
en kiel eble plej multaj manieroj,
en kiel eble plej multaj lokoj,
je kiel eble plej multaj momentoj,
al kiel eble plej multaj homoj,
ĝis kiel eble plej longe.

Of course if someone else has different suggestions I'm glad to hear them.

richardhall (User's profile) May 9, 2007, 3:49:20 PM

I'm kicking myself about those correlatives. I have no excuses, and will wear a "dunce's cap" for the rest of the evening as a penance!

I suppose I got some of the words right in approximately the right order...

mnlg (User's profile) May 9, 2007, 4:10:51 PM

richardhall:I have no excuses, and will wear a "dunce's cap" for the rest of the evening as a penance!
Just make it green with a white star ridego.gif

BTW it's interesting that la .uikipedias. mentions donkey's ears in some European variations, because that's how we call it -- donkey's hat.

Back to the top