ne era stato a sua volta conquistato - What is the English translation? English translators help general English translators with the translation of ne era stato a sua volta conquistato

Conges terminology question

2 months ago

Barbara R. Cochran, MFA asked this question:

Language pair:	Italian > English
Subject:	General
Level of diffculty:	Easy / medium
Word or term in question:	ne era stato a sua volta conquistato
Context:	Conquistata tutta la Cina, ne era stato a sua volta conquistato, e da khan mongolo si era transformato in imperatore cinese.

The answer of exegete was rated best

he had in turn suffered defeats

My comment:

- "a sua volta": "in turn" (= "subsequently", here - so "in turn" is better than "himself", I think).

- "conquistare⇒ vtr (impadronirsi: con forza) conquer⇒, ***defeat***⇒ vtr"

= he had been defeated

=> he had suffered defeats (or a defeat, but looking at his below biographies, it seems to be several defeats)

at https://www.wordreference.com/iten/Conquistare

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Full sentence:

"Having conquered all of China, he had in turn suffered defeats and, from a Mongol khan, he had become a Chinese emperor."

N.B.: he HAD suffered & he HAD become: placing yourself from the perspective of the end of his life, probably (we only received a one-sentence context).

It seems to be an assessment of the situation at the end of his life, otherwise the sentence does not make sense.

Cf. "However, internal political strife, discriminatory social policies and ***numerous ill-fated military campaigns*** would ultimately undermine the long-term viability of his Yuan Dynasty. He died in 1294."
https://www.biography.com/people/kublai-khan-9369657

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I suppose this is about Kublai Khan:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kublai_Khan :

"Kublai was the fifth Khagan (Great Khan) of the Mongol Empire, reigning from 1260 to 1294. ***He also founded the Yuan dynasty in China as a conquest dynasty in 1271***, and ruled as the first Yuan emperor until his death in 1294."

"In 1271, Kublai established the Yuan dynasty, which ruled over present-day Mongolia, China, Korea, and some adjacent areas, and assumed the role of Emperor of China.

By 1279, the Mongol conquest of the Song dynasty was completed and ***Kublai became the first non-Han emperor to conquer all of China***."

"Having achieved real or nominal dominion over much of Eurasia, and having successfully conquered China, Kublai was in a position to look beyond China.

However, Kublai's costly invasions of Vietnam (1258), Sakhalin (1264), Burma (1277), Champa (1282), and Vietnam again (1285) secured only the vassal status of those countries.

>>> ***Mongol invasions of Japan (1274 and 1280), the third invasion of Vietnam (1287–8), and the invasion of Java (1293) failed***. "

=> he conquered all of China but suffered later defeats (elsewhere, in his expansion attempts).

That's how I understand it, from the one-sentence context we received.