Can anyone help me translate a sentence from English to Latin?

Question

I would love to get an as accurate as possible translation of "Write to make sense of life."

I've asked an old English prof of mine (who just happens to know things like this), and he gave me this:

"Scribere vitam intelligere est. 'To write is to understand life.'
I'm surer of this simple formulation than I would be trying to write an imperative and construct a purpose clause that, as I recall, involves some peculiarity with the verb--a use of the subjunctive or an alteration of tenses."

If by any chance anyone here can add (or subtract) to this definition, (or tell me where I can go to find someone who can!), I'd greatly appreciate it. And my prof was right; what I really want to get across is this: "One must write in order to understand life" -- so I think the purpose clause ("ut") that he mentions is necessary. Don't you??

Answer 1

I quit using Answers a couple months ago because someone abused the "community moderation" feature to hassle me and Yahoo wouldn't do anything about it. Since you asked me directly though, one way you could say it with an ut-subjunctive purpose clause is "scribe ut vitam intellegas." There are several ways to get the meaning across, and the infinitives are ok too, if a little ambiguous.

Edit: Compare the Augustinian motto "crede ut intellegas". Intellegere is also an interesting choice because of its etymological relationship to "legere" (read).

Answer 2

A couple of possibilities:

Scribis ut interpretes vitam = You write to understand life. (You write in order that you may understand life.)

Necesse est scribere ut interpretet vitam = It is necessary to write for one to understand life.

Answer 3

check out the website freetranslation.com