[Grammar] Sentence structure and translation

[unscodst]

I am writing a poem and I am stuck on how to translate this line into Italian.

1: In life there is only death. So live while you can.

The best possible translation I could come up with / find, is this:

2: Nella vita c'è solo la morte, così vivo, mentre è possibile.


When I translate to English again, it reads like this.

3: In Life there is only death, so live, while you can.


So my questions is this. Did I structure the sentence correctly in English, (1? If so then does it "sound" right with the commas splitting it up (3?


To me it doesn't sound right, and I understand different languages have different sentence structures, but why the split? or is there a better way to translate the sentence or structure it?

 

[SoothingDave]

Do you really think life consists only of death?

 

[5jj]

Do you really think life consists only of death?

Well, all life ends in death.

 

[unscodst]

Its just for a poem. In the end the poem is about just living the way you want.

Can anyone help?

 

[Raymott]

Its just for a poem. In the end the poem is about just living the way you want.

Can anyone help?

I'd write "... così viva comè/mentre si puoi." 'Viva' is imperative.
But you'd be better getting the advice of some of our Italian friends, which you could have done by writing a subject line in Italian and posting in the Other Languages forum.

 

[Hedwig]

I am writing a poem and I am stuck on how to translate this line into Italian.

1: In life there is only death. So live while you can.

The best possible translation I could come up with / find, is this:

2: Nella vita c'è solo la morte, così vivo, mentre è possibile.


When I translate to English again, it reads like this.

3: In Life there is only death, so live, while you can.


So my questions is this. Did I structure the sentence correctly in English, (1? If so then does it "sound" right with the commas splitting it up (3?


To me it doesn't sound right, and I understand different languages have different sentence structures, but why the split? or is there a better way to translate the sentence or structure it?

I'm not sure I understand your question. You say at first that you're translating this into Italian, but you end up asking about how the sentence should have been written in English.

Assuming you're going from E into I:
In order to match your sentence number 1, number 2 should read something like:
Nella vita c'è solo la morte, allora/dunque/quindi vive mentre è possibile.

1) I don't think cosí is the word you're looking for. Any of the other three go better.

2) Vivo could be either the first person singular present indicative form (I live) or the adjectives live, alive, living. So I suggested vive, the third person imperative, which is what I understand in 'so live while you can'.

3) Also, you should get rid of that comma after vive.

Not a teacher

Note: I believe we should be discussing this thread in another sub-forum, which is particularly devoted to other languages. ;-)

 

[unscodst]

Yeah sorry for the confusion. I thought it said this forum was for English and other languages. I didn't see the sub's. Ill re-post to get a final answer.

Thank you all so far!