Latin stream/Latin Lesson One

This course is designed to provide you with the foundational skills necessary to begin reading and writing in Latin. This course will cover Classical Latin, which means that Medieval and Ecclesiastical Latin will not be covered in these course materials (although they are similar).

It is hoped that during this course, you will learn:

The basic structure of Latin grammar
How to decline a noun
How to conjugate a verb
How to form an adjective

Study Tips and Resources

Andrew Reinhard has recently published a well-researched article ( “From Slate to Tablet PC: Using New Technologies to Teach and Learn Latin and Greek") listing on-line resources for students studying Ancient Greek and Latin, in Classical Journal Online, picked up later and stored on the Wheelock's Latin page

Tips

Learning Latin is easier if you are willing to develop your capacity to memorize. Use any mnemonic device you can to memorize vocabulary and grammatical charts. The grammar charts are designed to be compact enough to fit into your memory, but memorizing the charts is not quite enough in itself--you have to think about what each chart means. Grammar is simply an efficient way to break down language into meaningful categories.

The Very Basics of Case Structure

Latin can be a challenging language to learn, especially at the outset. The number of forms may seem daunting but a lot of them are the same and everything follows a set pattern, so don't worry. The first thing to learn about Latin is its case system. In English, the sentence 'I kick the bucket' is made up of three parts. 'I' is the subject of the sentence. The subject performs the action. 'Kick' is the verb. The verb is the action which is performed by the subject. 'The bucket' is the object of the sentence. The object receives the action performed by the subject.

Synopsis:

Subject: The one performing the action. e.g. The cow kicks me; I want that; this meal is delicious. In Latin, the subject is referred to as the nominative subject.
Verb: The action being performed. e.g. The cow kicks me; I want that; this meal is delicious.
Object: The one receiving the action. e.g. The cow kicks me; I want that; There is no object in the third example. In Latin, the object is referred to as the accusative direct object.

Nouns

In English, the difference between the nominative subject and the accusative direct object is determined by their order in the sentence. For example, the sentence 'The sailor loves the girl' has a different meaning than 'the girl loves the sailor'. In Latin, however, the meaning of a sentence is instead determined by endings added to the words, called "inflections".

To illustrate this better, let's introduce some basic vocabulary. The form for these examples is Nominative, Genitive, Gender. Translation.

puella, puellae, f. girl
nauta, nautae, m. sailor

For now, let's look at the nominative nouns, puella and nauta. If the word is being used as the nominative subject, it will keep its -a ending. When it's used as the accusative direct object, it has an -am ending. Because the order of the nouns make no difference, 'Puella amat nautam' and 'Nautam amat puella' both mean 'the girl loves the sailor'. Puella has the nominative -a ending, and nautam has the accusative -am ending. To reverse the meaning, reverse the endings. 'Puellam amat nauta' means 'the sailor loves the girl'.

Note: Even though the order of words in the sentence doesn't matter, Latin grammar rules state that sentences have the nominative object at the beginning of the sentence, then the indirect subject, then the direct subject, and lastly, the verb. Also, prepositions are usually placed near their objects.

By this point we know the nominative (subject) case and the accusative (direct object) case. Latin has five cases in all, each with a different purpose in the sentence. In the examples below, the singular and plural endings are given next to name of the case. The horizontal bar over ā is called a macron, and indicates that the vowel is long, stressed differently than the short -a of the nominative case.

Nominative (a/ae)	The subject of the sentence. The boy has a book. The appositive of the sentence. The boy, the one with a book, has a pen. The predicate nominative. The boy is the author.
Genitive (ae/ārum)	Expresses possession. The book of the boy. (The boy's book)
Dative (ae/is)	The indirect object. I give the book to the boy.
Accusative (am/ās)	The direct object. I write the book.
Ablative (ā/is)	The object of the preposition. I write the book with a pen

Ideas in Latin can be expressed succinctly using these five cases. To say 'I give the book to the girl' the Latin would use puellae instead of to the puellam. (The sentence would read Do librum puellae.)

1st declension

The first declension is quite simple.The endings for the first declension are below.

case	singular	plural
Nominative	-a	-ae
Genitive	-ae	-ārum
Dative	-ae	-īs
Accusative	-am	-as
Ablative	-ā	-īs

To find the stem drop the genitive noun ending

Ex. aquae - ae= aqu

The genitive singular ending determines to which declension a noun belongs. In the first declension most nouns are feminine. Except for nauta, agricola, poeta which are all masculine.

edit by GermanGamboaJr 04:16, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Declensions

Now, all the nouns we used above are referred to as first declension nouns --i.e., nouns that end in -a (e.g., insula, puella) and form their genitive with -ae (e.g., nautae, puellae). There are five declensions in Latin: the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth. Nouns belonging to the first, second, and third declensions are seen most often.

Gender

Like other Romance languages, all nouns in Latin display gender. First declension nouns tend to be feminine, second declension nouns are masculine (mostly) or neuter ("neither"). But just because a noun is in the first declension, do not assume that its gender is feminine. "Sailor", nauta, is a masculine first declension noun. Since adjectives are determined by gender, make note of a noun's gender when you learn it.

Dictionary Entry

The dictionary entry provides the least information necessary to fully recognize a noun. This means you must learn to read concise dictionary entries. The dictionary entry of a noun begins with its nominative and genitive singular forms, and its gender. From these three items (1) a noun's declension can be determined, and (2) any adjectives modifying it can be detected.

Since the five noun declensions all display the genitive singular form differently, the genitive singular form is a sure determinant of a noun's declension. This is why the genitive singular form is included in the dictionary entry. Furthermore, as mentioned above, any adjectives describing a noun will share its gender, and this is indicated in the dictionary entry by m., f., or n.

Verbs

To make things easy, we'll start verbs by using the verb "to be". This is the basic form of a verb is is usually translated as "I am", "He is", "You are", etc. Below is a conjugation chart for the verb "to be":

Verb "to be"
	Singular	Plural
1st Person	sum	sumus
2nd Person	es	estis
3rd Person	est	estis

A verb can be translated on of three ways: Simple, Progressive, and Emphatic. However, the verb "to be" can only be translated in the progressive.

Verb "to be"
Latin	English
sum	I am
es	You are
est	He/she/it is
sumus	We are
estis	You (Y'all) are
sunt	They are

Vocabulary

This is your vocabulary for this section.

Nouns

Femina, feminae f. woman
Insula, insulae f. island
Terra, terrae f. earth, land
Puella, puellae f. girl
Taeda, taedae f. torch
Aqua, aquae f. water
Domina, dominae f. lady, mistress
Silva, silvae f. woods, forest
Via, viae f. way, road, street
Villa, villae f. farmhouse, villa, house (large)

Verbs

(see the translations in the verb section)

Prepositions

in in, on, at
sub under, beneath, at the foot of
cum with

Exercises

In this exercise, give the number (singular or plural) and case of the noun. A number next to the word indicates the number of correct answers.

Example: Puellae (3). Nominative plural; Genitive singular; Dative singular.

1. Puella

2. Silvae*

3. Insulīs*

4. Taedā

5. Feminārum

6. Villam

7. Aquae*

8. Terrīs*

9. Dominae*

10. Viās

*Words with this icon may have more than one meaning.

Translate these sentences into English.

Example: Insulam dat nautae puella. The girl gives the island to the sailor.

1. Puella es.

2. Feminae in villā sunt.

3. Cum puellīs sumus.

4. In insulā estis.

5. Aqua sub terrīs est.