Sorry if this isn't entirely the correct place for this; I didn't want to post in the Esperanto-speaking forum because I'm not competent enough yet.

So, question: How do we translate 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy'?

I really have no idea. The last part, 'makes Jack a dull boy' is easy. I would say 'changes Jack into a dull boy', but there's probably a slicker way of doing it. For the first bit, should the jussive form of the verbs work and play be used?

Thanks for any help,
James

My quick take:

Ĉiam labori kaj neniam ludi faras Jackon teda knabo.

I like infinitives for work and play even though they aren't really infinitives in the original. It just sounds better to me.

Don't worry this is an OK place to ask such a thing, if not what this forum's meant for!

Literally: "Ĉiam labori kaj neniam ludi igas Jack esti malsprita knabo." (edit: ah, Trojo's "faras" there sounds better than my "igias (esti)" I'd assume)
Or something like that. Not feeling confident about that "igi" there. My mind's in Indonesian mode today so I can't really think to hard about how all those verbs finite and infinite are meant to play together nicely.

Nonetheless, I'd just avoid the "Jack's a dull lad" part and go with:

"Ĉiam labori kaj neniam ludi estas neniel spriti" or some variation. ("Neniel spriti estas ĉiam labori kaj neniam ludi"?)

(To always work and to never play is to be in no way lively)

Slightly funner and rhythmic than saying:
"Ĉiam labori kaj neniam ludi estas neniel sprite"
(To always work and to never play is in no way lively).

In the Proverbaro of Zamenhof we have:
Laboro finita, ripozo merita.
Memori pri mezuro en laboro kaj plezuro. (IMO that should possibly be Memoru).

Thanks for the replies.

I'm always hesitant about using infinitives for some reason. I don't even like using them in sentences like 'You must do this', even though it's obvious that you should.

With 'Ĉiam labori kaj neniam ludi faras Jackon teda knabo', why is 'Jacko' accusative but not 'teda knabo'? Is it because there's a preposition 'into' sitting in the sentence somewhere which we've omitted?

So, question: How do we translate 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy'?

Normally I am in favor of translations that capture the spirit of a passage rather than focusing on word-for-word translations, but in this case I would like to see a very tight translation because the phrase is such an iconic part of The Shining.

Gesar:With 'Ĉiam labori kaj neniam ludi faras Jackon teda knabo', why is 'Jacko' accusative but not 'teda knabo'?

It is esti that is implicit, before teda.

Usages of that type are fairly common, not just with fari, but also with certain other words like opinii (e.g. Mi opinias tiun libron stulta; notice the nominative "stulta").

That type of usage of fari is described here in PMEG and for other verbs here (Esperanto only). For me though, learning the slightly more advanced rules of grammar and usage is easier to achieve just by reading well-written, enjoyable stories and articles, and letting the standard usages seep into my brain naturally. IMO it is easier to learn by example than by reading lists of rules. Fortunately PMEG itself has lots of examples with clear, short explanations, so it is pretty easy to read.

Also, it is possible to rephrase the original sentence such that 'teda knabo' is accusative: Ĉiam labori kaj neniam ludi faras el Jack tedan knabon ("Always working and never playing makes a dull boy out of Jack"), but that is not as close to the original.

Gesar:I'm always hesitant about using infinitives for some reason.

You definitely need to get past that. Infinitives are used all the time (as we also do in English - you just don't notice them in English so much because the form of the verb doesn't change; we simply add "to" in the front).

Eble iu trovos vian lastan demandon neinteresa kaj senutila, sed mi trovas ĝin interesa kaj utila. (Maybe someone will find your last question uninteresting and useless, but I find it interesting and useful.)

I opened the message with an Esperanto phrase on purpose, since I'm using in it the very language structure we are talking about.

In both languages, the sentence is not stating that your last question is in itself interesting or uninsteresting, useful or useless (in fact, it would be a self contradiction to state such opposite things when describing anything). Rather, what is being said is that the subject (I) considers your question as having that characteritics, while other subjects may consider it in a different way.

This difference may seem hairsplitting, yet it can be really important in some contexts, for proper understanding of what is being said or written.

May I throw just a small Spanish phrase?

"Encontré a la chica linda". This is gramatically correct Spanish, yet it is ambiguous. It can be translated into English either of this ways:

"I found the beautiful girl" (Perhaps among several girls, I found the pretty one)

"I found the girl beautiful" (I considered the girl to be beautiful, even if she is not beautiful accoding to the general opinion)

(As an aside, if a Spanish speaker wanted to make clear that he speaks about his perception, rather than about an objective quality, he would say "Encontré linda a la chica.")

English solves the ambiguity, as we have seen, by reversing the word order. The normal order adjective+noun is used for an objective quality, while the reversed order indicates we are talking about the subject's perception.

But in Esperanto, the adjective may be used either before of after the noun (though it is more frequently used before), and so this reversion would not give us certainty. "Mi trovis la bela(n) knabinon" or "Mi trovis la knabinon bela(n)" would essentially mean the same.

So the ingenious accusative comes again to help us preserve at the same time flexibility and clarity.

"Mi trovis la knabinon belan / la belan knabinon" = I found the girl who is objectively beautiful.

"Mi trovis la knabinon bela / bela la knabinon" = I considered the girl to be beautiful.

Using the accusative in the first example is just logical. The quality belongs to the girl, and so the adjective matches the respective noun in number and case.

In the second example, "bela" is not something necessarily belonging to the girl. It speaks more about the action performed by the subject, than about the object itself, therefore it does not have the -n mark. For the same reason, I would say "Mi trovis bela la knabinon" but not "Mi trovis la bela knabinon", since in this last (incorrect) sentence I would be tearing appart the article from the noun it belongs to.

With a bit of practice you'll do this on the fly without any grammar analysis.

Regards,

Daniel