By Nina Tiberia (Tonina Rodenberger)
Recently Magistrae Zelda Walpole and Tonina Rodenberger started a basic Latin lesson in Roma SPQR.
Here you can read a short summary about what was taught in the first lesson:
Latin is an inflected language. In other words, the meaning and function of each word, especially nouns, adjectives and verbs, varies based on its endings.
Whereas english derives meaning from word order ("Man bites dog" and "Dog bites man" mean entirely different things) Latin may place the words in any order but the endings of the words make sentence meaning clear.
Nouns
Latin nouns are sorted into 5 declensions.
Flecting a noun (and that also includes names) or an adjective is called "to decline".
It is also important to know, that every latin noun has its gender, either masculine or feminine or neuter.
Latin nouns are sorted into 5 declensions and we learned about the:
1st (a-) -declension, that its nouns end on -a in nominative singular and that most of them are feminine.
Example: rosa = The rose, a rose
2nd (o-) -declension, that the masculine nouns of this declension end on -us in nominative singular.
Example: servus = the slave, a slave
Verbs
Flecting a verb we call "to conjugate".
Latin verbs are sorted into 5 conjugations.
Each Latin verb, depending on its spelling, falls under one of these categories. From there a verb can be conjugated into tenses such as present, imperfect, future I, perfect, plusquamperfect and future II
and the ending also tells us who is doing something or to whom something is done.
Our first latin lesson taught us, that the 1st person singular present (he,she,it) is expressed by the ending -t.
Example: sedet = he/she/it sits
rogat = he/she/it asks
Look forward to the next lesson. Keep in mind what you learned so far and, well, dont forget to learn your vocabulary! ;-)
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