# Help with St. Augustine quote
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-st-augustine-quote/468957
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [October 21, 2008, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-st-augustine-quote/468957 "2008-10-21T22:05:46Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@TNWPsycho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TNWPsycho)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2008, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-st-augustine-quote/468957/1 "2008-10-21T22:05:46Z")
I recently got done reading “_An Essay Concerning Human Understanding_” by John Locke.
I managed to take down a few notes, and a few quotes i liked.
One of the quotes i liked was from St. Augustine; “Si non rogas intelligo” which is translated in the book as “if you do not ask, I understand.”
However when i try to translate it myself on a free site i don’t get that at all, i get “if you wish not rogas understanding”
And even more puzzling to me is when i try to translate “if you do not ask i understand” into Latin i get “si vos operor non scisco ego agnosco”
Can anybody help me translating “si non rogas intelligo” from Latin to English. Or did John Locke have the translation correct?
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2008, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-st-augustine-quote/468957/2 "2008-10-21T22:40:59Z")
No, that’s right…
Si non rogas intellego
(si non rogas is the conditional, rogas is the indicative form of “to ask, interrogate”, intellego would be “I understand”)
So, yeah, “If you don’t ask, I understand”