If any have been inadvertently overlooked, the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity. If reading this text has inspired you to learn more, you may be interested in joining the millions of people who discover our free learning resources and qualifications by visiting The Open University — www. Biblioteca Apostolica, Vatican City. Printable page generated Friday, 12 Nov , Use 'Print preview' to check the number of pages and printer settings.
Print functionality varies between browsers. Printable page generated Friday, 12 Nov , Getting started on classical Latin Introduction The aim of this free course is to enable you to get started on learning Latin in a fairly leisurely but well-focused way.
Learning outcomes After studying this course, you should be able to: understand some of the main links between English and Latin pronounce Latin words confidently have an understanding of basic English grammar in order to recognise and describe the way languages work unravel basic Latin sentences.
Activity 1 There are other homely words in this category. Activity 2 In addition to the words which have derived from Latin or from Latin through French, English also uses a number of words taken straight from Latin without any change. To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register. Interactive feature not available in single page view see it in standard view. Answer Latin word English meaning arma arms, weapons causa cause, reason custos guard custodian defendo I defend diffiicilis difficult elephantus elephant femina woman feminine frater brother fraternal nomen name nominal optimus very good, excellent optimal pater father paternal servus slave servant.
Potter, , pp. He seems really annoyed. I saw you speaking to that woman. What did she say? You had the book in your hand just now. Where did you put it?
Neuter nouns include: templum, temple bellum, war consilium, plan nomen, name If you are new to language learning and even if you are not! Activity 6 Identify the person 1st, 2nd, 3rd and number singular or plural of the following English verbs. The main tenses in Latin are given in Table 6 below. Activity 7 Identify the Latin tense — present, imperfect, perfect or pluperfect — that would be used to translate the following English verbs.
Answer Example Person and tense You speak present tense, 2nd person They have arrived perfect tense, 3rd person plural We used to know imperfect tense, 1st person plural We went perfect tense or imperfect tense depending whether it is a completed or repeated action , 1st person plural You are flying present tense, 2nd person I was trying imperfect tense, 1st person singular He had jumped pluperfect tense, 3rd person singular She fell perfect tense depending whether it is a completed or repeated action , 3rd person singular.
Consider these sentences: The players ran onto the pitch. The referee blew his whistle, and the centre-forward kicked off. Activity 9 Identify the subjects and verbs in the following sentences. I like chocolate. The boys ran as fast as they could. Tomorrow my friend and I are going to Paris. She was sitting beside her friend on the bus and they were talking loudly. Chris and Robbie climbed the tree. Subject Verb 1.
I like 2. Words: 0. Answer Subject Verb 1. My friend and I are going 4. Chris and Robbie climbed. Activity 10 Identify the subject, verb and object in the following sentences. The dog fetched the ball. The girls were quietly reading their books. The Romans could not forgive her. People will be watching you. Activity 11 The following passage is about the Roman emperor Gaius, better known as Caligula.
Answer Subject Verb Object Gaius deprived the [noblest] men Torquatus lost his [golden] collar Cincinnatus lost his lock [of hair] Gnaeus Pompeius lost the surname He invited King Ptolemy He welcomed him He ordered his execution his [fine purple] cloak had attracted [universal] admiration Gaius encountered a [good-looking] man He himself was the back [of his scalp] was shaved.
Consider the following, for example: The dark and vicious place where thee he got Cost him his eyes. Shakespeare, King Lear , 5. Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken Shakespeare, Sonnet no. Activity 12 To make sure you have understood the principles established so far, see if you can pick out the subject, verb and object in the following seven examples.
Example 1 Our hearts you see not; Shakespeare, Julius Caesar , 3. Example 5 Much he the place admired, the person more. Milton, Paradise Lost , 9.
Example 6 Two massy [massive] keys he bore, of metals twain Milton, Lycidas , Answer Subject Verb Object You see Our hearts great Lucifer craves for that security This casket unlocks India's glowing gems his lavish tongue bestows wit, brav'ry, worth he admired the place, the person he bore two massy [massive] keys he could remove the thoughts of War.
The woman loves gold. The slave sees the forum. The woman is a queen. The slave loves the woman. The boy captures the wolf. The boy runs towards the woman. Trees that keep their leaves all winter are evergreen , an easy enough English word; but trees that lose their leaves are deciduous , a not so easy word—unless you know Latin.
The whole classification system of all living things, plants and animals, is based on Latin and Greek. Here are two examples: Acer saccharum and Quercus alba. Saccharum , from which we get saccharin and saccharine , is sugar in Latin; alba , from which we derive albino , is white in Latin. And Quercus was the Roman name for oak Figure 7. Even mathematical terms come from Latin. Integer means fresh, uninjured, whole in Latin, and thus, integers are whole numbers.
Axios means worthy in Greek, and thus an axiom is a principle that all reasonable people accept even though it cannot be proven. Because it is worthy of belief. An exponent is a number placed outside of the writing line, and a radical is the root of a number.
The square root of 9 is 3. Radicals, remember those? See Figure 8 There is something about actually knowing the root word that not only helps you remember a new term but also deepens your understanding of its meaning.
Not only does Latin provide the root words for all of the modern sciences Reason 3 , but Latin is the language of law, politics, logic, and theology. While a large number of words in science come from Greek, law is the exclusive domain of the Latin language.
All legal terms are Latin. The Romans excelled in the practical arts of law and government, and it is from them that we derive our legal and political language.
How many of these words do you know the meanings of? Figure 1 Latin is invaluable for the business and law student. And although logic was first explained by Aristotle in Greek, it was really developed and systematized by the schoolmen in the Middle Ages—in Latin, of course.
And in the West, even Christian theology was worked out in Latin. Figure 2 Many of the original words were Greek, but they were all filtered through the Latin language. In fact, everything that has come down to us from the ancient world was filtered through Latin.
Sometimes they grabbed existing Latin words and gave them new meanings, like grace which meant favor or thanks.
Christians gave grace a new spiritual meaning—the undeserved favor of God, Christian grace. And sometimes they created new words, like the Latin word Trinity , a word not found in Scripture but one needed to express the doctrine of the three-in-one God.
Tres, tria is three and unus is one , Tri unity. Both three and one at the same time. Many well know theological concepts are in Latin. We are created Imago Dei , in the image of God, and ex nihilo , from nothing. Sola fide was the battle cry of the Reformation. How many new grammar programs have failed to produce results? First it was Easy Grammar and now it is Shirley Grammar. The problem is not with these programs; the problem is with English grammar. Why is English grammar so difficult to teach?
There are several reasons, the first of which is summed up by these observations:. The second reason is that English grammar is too abstract for the grammar stage. In my opinion it is about the same level of abstraction and difficulty as algebra. I think we have all made a serious mistake by emphasizing analytical English grammar in the grammar stage. Memorizing, remember, is consistent with the grammar stage, not analysis, which belongs in the logic stage.
English grammar is abstract and invisible because of its lack of structure and inflection. But Latin grammar is concrete and visible because of its structure and inflection. What is inflection? Inflected languages have noun endings that tell you what the noun is doing in the sentence.
Is the noun a subject, a direct object, or an indirect object? Look at the first two sentences to see inflection Figure 3. In the second sentence, Mary is the direct object; its ending, am , tells you so. When Mary is the subject it ends in a , and when Mary is the direct object, it ends in am —similar to he and him in English.
Do you see how the Latin grammar is visible and concrete? You can see and hear the difference between a subject and a direct object in Latin. Inflected languages also have verb endings that tell you who is doing the action of the verb, and when. The personal pronouns, we and they , do not have to be expressed in Latin because they are contained in the verb endings -mus and -nt. Inflection makes grammar visible and concrete.
English grammar is abstract and hidden because it is uninflected. It is unsystematic, unstructured, unreliable, and inconsistent. We are a loose and freedom loving people. We break the rules. The Romans were the most disciplined, structured, organized people in history and so was their language; their conjugations and declensions march in disciplined rows just like their legions. There is a third problem with English grammar: English grammar!
Learning a foreign language is the most effective way to learn grammar. And what is more natural and hard to think about than your own native language? It is second nature. The child of three or four speaks in complete sentences with subjects and predicates, verbs, direct objects, indirect objects, prepositional phrases, possessives, participles, gerunds, and infinitives—all without instruction.
You do not have to tell the child to put a predicate in his sentence, do you? Of course not. So when the student tries to analyze something he uses naturally and has learned by imitation, he finds it rather useless and dull. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Ancient History and Latin Expert.
Gill is a Latinist, writer, and teacher of ancient history and Latin. Updated January 21, Featured Video. Cite this Article Format. Gill, N. What Is the Latin Word Order? How to Build Sentences with Appositives. Set cookie preferences.
Update The interactive parts of this resource have been removed. Stage 1 Latin grammar resource. Nouns Verbs Adjectives Adverbs Prepositions Pronouns Endings of words The various endings of each declension or conjugation are set out in the following tables.
A noun is a word denoting a person, a place or a thing. A verb is a word that describes an action.
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