# If you can dream it, you can do it.



## davidmannheim

Wow...there really are some extremely talented people in this forum - its taken me a while to flick through a lot of the posts!

I am looking for a translation of this phrase (English to Latin)

If you can dream it, you can do it.

Any help would be much appreciated


----------



## loco44

I suggest you to make your own try first ...


----------



## davidmannheim

I really don't have the slightest idea. I know dream is somnium, but that is going back to my GCSE days. This is for a birthday present for my son (I've giving him a book and want him to remember this phrase) and as you can see from my native language and surname - I'm more English/German. 
Please help!


----------



## Flaminius

My attempt:
si id somniare potes, id facere potes.

Many happy returns to your son.


----------



## relativamente

Id is o.k. but suggests that something has been said

I think is better

Si de aliquo somniare potes et id facere potes


----------



## Flaminius

Oh, I see.  I never thought English _it_ can be used for something that has never mentioned (here, it is similar to _something_).

I think _somnio_ can take accusative nouns.  What different nuances does it create if one uses "_de_ + ablative" construction?


----------



## Fred_C

Well I do not understand.
your "it" does not _grammatically_ mean "something", it is just the intention that leads such a meaning. Therefore, the first sentence with "id" is fine.


----------



## Cagey

Flaminius said:


> Oh, I see.  I never thought English _it_ can be used for something that has never mentioned (here, it is similar to _something_).  [....]


I think that relativamente is pointing out that the Latin _*id*_ is a demonstrative, and thus most often points back to something already mentioned.  As relativamente says, _id_ is not wrong.  However, Latin might prefer a relative pronoun here.  

Other versions to consider:_Quidquid somniare potes, facere potes._ (Whatever you can dream, you can do.) ​The above is a general assertion.  However, the following would be a promise about the future._Quidquid somniare potueris, facere poteris. _ (Literally: "Whatever you will have been able to dream, you will be able to do."  It is the Latin equivalent of the English: "Whatever you can dream, you will be able to do".)​[_Somnio_ is used with _de_ less frequently than with an accusative object; Cicero has used it with _de_.  I don't know what, if any, difference in meaning there is between the two constructions.]


----------



## wonderment

Hi, all!  These are good suggestions, but I’m not sure that I’d use _somniare_ to translate ‘dream’ in the sense of to imagine or to aspire to a cherished ideal. In Latin, the figural meaning of _somniare_ is “to think idly or vainly, to talk foolishly.” (The etymology of  ‘dream’ is itself interesting. In Old English the word meant “joy, mirth, music.” Not until Middle English (c.1250) did it acquire the meaning of “visions that occur during sleep.” The sense of “aspiration, ambition, or ideal” was a late development in Modern English (c.1931).) 

As Flaminius, relativamente, and Cagey have suggested:

_Si aliquid somniare potes, id facere potes. _(If you can dream it, you can do it.)
_Quidquid somniare potes, facere potes._ (Whatever you can dream, you can do.)​You could replace _somniare_ with one of the following verbs; something will be lost in translation, but the choice is yours:

_fingere_: to form mentally or in speech, to represent in thought, to imagine, conceive, think, suppose; to sketch out 
_concipere_: to comprehend intellectually, to take in, imagine, conceive, think
_aspirare_: to aspire to a person or thing, to desire to reach or obtain
(for this option, you will need to add a preposition: _Ad quidquid aspirare potes, id facere potes..._ _Si ad aliquid aspirare_... is too oddly alliterative)​(@davidmannheim: your sentence echos a famous couplet often attributed to Goethe: _Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it/ Boldness has genius, power and magic in it._  I was going to suggest searching for the original German, but alas, it’s only a _very_ loose paraphrase of some lines from _Faust_... Happy Birthday to your son. )


----------



## Starfrown

Cagey said:


> [_Somnio_ is used with _de_ less frequently than with an accusative object; Cicero has used it with _de_. I don't know what, if any, difference in meaning there is between the two constructions.]


 
I think the difference is essentially the same as that between the English "dream" and "dream of/about."


----------

