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2014-08-07 17:48:06

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Latin Classroom

Teacher: [windowframe]

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Section 1: Intro

Unlike English, Latin is a fully inflected language. What does this mean exactly? In English to change the tense or the person (first, second, third) of a verb, for example, you have to add different words around the main verb - "I ran", "She ran", "they ran", "I am running", "She is running", etc. - but the verb itself usually remains the same. In an inflected language, all of the information about tense, mood, and person are encoded in the verb itself. e.g.: amo (I love) amat (she/he/it loves), amabam (I was loving).

In English, word order is very important in figuring out the meaning of a sentence: 'The man kicks the dog' and 'the dog kicks the man' mean two very different things. In Inflected languages, word order is not so important because, again, much of the information we gain from word order is encoded into the noun itself.

The way a verb changes to show different mood, person and tense is called conjugation. The way a noun changes in order to show its function within a sentence is called declension.

Section 2: Nouns

2.1: number
Number simply reference to whether a noun is singular (referring to one thing) or plural (referring to two or more things). Even English has this property. The standard difference between a singular and a plural in English is an addition of an 's' in the plural: The Table, The tables. In Latin it is a little more complicated because of the cases.

2.2: Cases
In the declensions of Latin nouns, there are six cases, which means that for each noun, there are a maximum of 12 possible permutations (six singular, six plural). The case indicates the syntax of a noun - the function it serves in a sentence. We will cover this in more detail momentarily.

2.3: Gender
The second quality of nouns that's important right now is gender. The idea that nouns have a gender is often fairly confusing to those who aren't familiar with such a notion, but even in English, there is a certain minute amount of gendering that still happens - ships and cars, for instance, tend to be referred to as "she". Latin has three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. It's useful to remember the gender of a noun when learning vocabulary, because the different genders decline in different ways.

Resources:

The following are Jetpunk quizzes created by [windowframe] to help students of Latin revise noun declensions, verb conjugations and general vocabulary:

100 most common Latin words (Latin to English): http://www.jetpunk.com/user-quizzes/100028/100-most-common-latin-words-110-latin-to-english

First declension noun endings: http://www.jetpunk.com/user-quizzes/100028/latin-1st-declension

First Conjugation present tense active verb endings: http://www.jetpunk.com/user-quizzes/100028/latin-1st-conjugation-present-tense

Full conjugation (all moods and tenses) for the verb 'to be': http://www.jetpunk.com/user-quizzes/100028/latin-conjugate-esse-to-be-all-tenses-all-moods

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Back to Languages, the Elftown Academy,
or have a look at the Ancient Greek Classroom

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2004-06-30 [the 5th apocalyptic horseman]: lol well those medieval rock songs usually either use ancient or medieval latin.

2004-07-08 [font]: hmmm i remember the days of learning latin at school...

2004-09-14 [Sheona]: You ocassionally encounter Latin still in old songs and perhaps in a Christian context, too. However, it is "officially" a dead language. You don't often find anyone to talk to in Latin these day ;)

2004-09-14 [windowframe]: yet so many words are Latin based...in quite a lot of languages.

2004-09-14 [Sheona]: That's very true. Most European languages are derived from Latin, so although you won't be speaking Latin to anyone, it can certainly improve your skills in other languages!

2004-09-14 [Sheona]: Just a note: the conjugations of esse, sum, fui have been put in the Past Latin Vocab. Answers are also now up!

2004-09-17 [Lavilia]: yay you great!

2004-10-28 [Lavilia]: I'm writing out. I am too busy for doing this, I have to study

2005-02-12 [M_Sinner]: I took Latin for 2 years, but have been out of the loop for nearly one full year now, studting only sparsely to keep up my skills. I am eager to learn all that I can and help in any way that I can.

2005-02-12 [M_Sinner]: Is there anywhere we should send the answers we got for the lessons, or post them anywhere, or just do them *looks around inocently, hoping someone doesn't hit him*

2005-05-05 [M_Sinner]: Quiet group, these guys...

2005-06-13 [Kitara Softpaw]: *coughs* Sorry I didn't sign up until today...I've been working on the slessons courtesy of my sister, Neziah

2005-08-07 [Janouk]: Hi! You might have noticed that the previous Latin teacher left this classroom. I will try to continue her classroom, and maybe add some new lessons soon. First I want to see what [Sheona]'s been teaching so far, as to make a good lesson to continue with. I am avaible for questions about anything though.

2005-08-07 [M_Sinner]: ALRIGHT!!! WE have an active Latin Teacher!!! *dances* Adsum, Magistra!

2005-08-07 [Janouk]: [Sheona]m bonam magistram esse video! *gets nervous*

2005-08-07 [M_Sinner]: Nonne! Non in loco erat... Holtsladeram bonam magistram esse. She was my Latin teacher at my former high school.

2005-08-07 [Janouk]: Oh! Id comprehendo ;)

2005-12-14 [lini]: is there ever going to be a lesson 4?

2005-12-14 [Janouk]: I am trying to find time to make a new lesson which will be able to follow up the ones the previous teacher already made. As a matter of fact, I searched for what I made yesterday, so I might get something online next week.

2005-12-14 [Janouk]: I'm really sorry for taking so long though...

2006-01-09 [lini]: jeej lesson 4. sorry for that comment.

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