The phrase I am trying to translate to Latin is “Seize the joy”. I have tried a couple of online translate services and have been given “Carpe gaudium”…but I don’t know whether to trust plug in translators. Is “Carpe gaudium” correct?
Looks about right to me. “Gaudium” would be the accusative case, which is the case you want for something that you’re doing something to.
At worst, there are a few different synonyms for each of those words, each with slightly different nuances, but given that “seize the day” is itself a translation of “carpe diem”, I’d say that that’s definitely the word you want, and “gaudium” has about as close a sense to “joy” as you’re going to get (the related “gaudete” is usually translated as “rejoice”).
I’d go for laititiam carpe.
Laetitia is joy in the sense of gladness; happiness; pleasure; delight.
Gaudium is joy in the sense of rejoicing; celebration. It suggests a greater degree of activity or assertion.
Laetitia is something that happens to you; gaudium is something you do.
And “felicitas” is even further in the direction of something that happens to you (it’s usually translated as “luck”, but also has a sense of “happiness”).
There are further more-or-less general synonyms like hilaritas, voluptas, iucunditas, etc. There is some discussion in e.g De finibus bonorum et malorum
for instance voluptas means “laetitiam in animo, commotionem suavem iucunditatis in corpore” and can denote a mental as well as a bodily feeling, while “non dicitur laetitia nec gaudium in corpore”, i.e. those words are not used for bodily sensations.
While your at it, does anyone have a good translation for “Seize the carp.”?
Capta cyprinum (???)
Or maybe more simply “cape cyprinum”, as in take it, catch it.