Learn Latin!

[Zuwxiv]

Someone mentioned learning latin in the latin thread here, so I figured... Why not start a topic?

Alright, there is no way I can teach anyone latin in one post, and I am only second year, but I hope I can put up some basics. I'm going to be using some books to help me with examples... The first book that I will use is Cambridge Latin Course Unit 1, which is an easy reader, but doesn't teach very well. I will try to fill in the blanks, but first, here is some vocab.

est: is
pater: father
mater: mother
filius: son
servus: slave
coquus: cook
canis: dog
in: in (a lot of words are very similar or the exact same thing in english... this helps&#33
tablino: study
triclinio: dining room
atrio: greeting hall, reception room
horto: garden
culina: kitchen
scribit: writing
sedet: sitting
bibit: drinking
laborat: working
dormit: sleeping
via: street
intrat: enters
circumspectat: looks around
cibus: food
in mensa: on the table ("in" can mean on as well)
salit: jumps
stat: stands
stertit: snores
latrat: barks
surgit: gets up
iratus: angry
pestis: pest
furcifer: scoundrel
clamat: shouts
exit: goes out

Just some quick things to know but not necessarily right now.
All words change. There are twelve different forms for nouns and many different forms for verbs... over a hundred, I believe. Don't try to remember them now.
There is no word for "the" or "a" in this form of latin (the "fancy" book type is what this is, I believe)
Sentence order: Subject (the person doing something), then direct object (the thing recieving the action), then the verb at the end.
So instead of I (subject) kick (verb) the ball (direct object)....
English: I kick the ball.
Latin: I the ball kick.
It kind of sounds like yoda. :p

Some names that I will use from the book:

Caecilius: a banker, the father of the family.
Metella: the mother.
Quintus: the son
Clemens: the slave
Grumio: the kook.
Cerberus: the dog (cerberus was the dog in the underworld)

Here are some basic sentences:
Caecilius pater est. (Caecilius is a name, and the verb goes last, so this reads Caecilius is a father.)
Metella mater est.
Quintus filius est.
Clemens servus est.
Grumio coquus est.
Cerberus canis est.

Caecilius in tablino est. (Caecilius is in the study.)
Metella in atrio est.
Quintus in triclinio est.
pater in tablino scribit. (The father is writing in the study.)
mater in atrio sedet.
filius in triclinio bibit.

If anyone has questions or comments, just post! More later....

[The spartan]

Awsome! I have always wanted to learn Latin :grin (no sarcasim).

[Zuwxiv]

Here's a little passage: I will update the vocab in the above post for any words needed. There might be a mistake, I'm only human..

Caecilius in horto est. Caecilius in horto sedet. servus in atrio est. servus in atrio laborat. Metella in atrio est. Metella in atrio sedet. Quintus in tablino est. Quintus in tablino scribit. Cerberus in via est.
coquus in culina est. coquus in culina dormit. Cerberus intrat. Cerberus circumspectat. cibus in mensa est. canis salit. canis in mensa stat. Grumio stertit. canis latrat. Grumio surgit. coquus iratus est. "pestis! furcifur!" coquus clamat. Cerberus exit.

Edit: yep, mistakes. I fixed what hopefully is all of them, the book uses english sentence order in the beginning, so I mixed some up, but I fixed them.

[hormiga]

Not an easy language to master....

[Brian is writing graffiti on the palace wall. The Centurion catches him in the act]
Centurion: What's this, then? "Romanes eunt domus"? People called Romanes, they go, the house?
Brian: It says, "Romans go home. "
Centurion: No it doesn't ! What's the latin for "Roman"? Come on, come on !
Brian: Er, "Romanus" !
Centurion: Vocative plural of "Romanus" is?
Brian: Er, er, "Romani" !
Centurion: [Writes "Romani" over Brian's graffiti] "Eunt"? What is "eunt"? Conjugate the verb, "to go" !
Brian: Er, "Ire". Er, "eo", "is", "it", "imus", "itis", "eunt".
Centurion: So, "eunt" is...?
Brian: Third person plural present indicative, "they go".
Centurion: But, "Romans, go home" is an order. So you must use...?
[He twists Brian's ear]
Brian: Aaagh ! The imperative !
Centurion: Which is...?
Brian: Aaaagh ! Er, er, "i" !
Centurion: How many Romans?
Brian: Aaaaagh ! Plural, plural, er, "ite" !
Centurion: [Writes "ite"] "Domus"? Nominative? "Go home" is motion towards, isn't it?
Brian: Dative !
[the Centurion holds a sword to his throat]
Brian: Aaagh ! Not the dative, not the dative ! Er, er, accusative, "Domum" !
Centurion: But "Domus" takes the locative, which is...?
Brian: Er, "Domum" !
Centurion: [Writes "Domum"] Understand? Now, write it out a hundred times.
Brian: Yes sir. Thank you, sir. Hail Caesar, sir.
Centurion: Hail Caesar ! And if it's not done by sunrise, I'll cut your balls off.

[Zuwxiv]

The first time I saw that, I didn't know what he was sayint... it was much funnier once I knew some latin. :p

Here is an interesting latin sentence:

malo malo malo malo.

I would rather be in a ship at sea than a naughty boy in an apple tree.

Edit: wrote it down wrong, give me a break, it was from memory a year ago. :p

Further edit: here are some more.

Ave, ave, aveo esse aves.
Hi Grandpa, I'd like to eat birds.

Cane decane, canis? Sed ne cane, cane decane, de cane; de canis, cane decane, cane.
Do you sing, o white-haired old man? But please don't sing about your dog, o venerable old man; Sing about your old age.

O Tite tute Tati, tibi tanta, tyranne tulisti!
O thou tyrant, Titus Tatius, such great troubles you brought upon yourself! (By Ennius)

Summergimurne?
Are we sinking?

Eo eo cum eo eo.
I go as I go.

Quantum materiæ materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

[Nihil]

Keep it up Zuwxiv man, I really want to learn Latin.

When you posted this a few weeks ago:

Nihil is against false-hope? What, is nihil an optimist?

Anyone who speaks latin should enjoy that.

All I coiuld think of to say was: I don't speak a word of latin I'm afraid, all I know is that Nihil is the optimum. And that seemed kinda stupid so I posted nothing.

So make with the lessons so that I may appear erudite and scholarly!

Incidentally, Nihil is in fact a pun on my real name.

[Lapoleon]

In latin there are five declinations (don't know if that's the correct english word), they give different endings to a noun. They are:
The nominativus: the subject of the sentence
The genitivus: a declination that means possesion, as in "the life of Brian" In which case Brian would be genitivus
The dativus: The dativus is used in the following way "I give the ball to Bob", here Bob is in the dativus.
The accusativus: the object of a sentence
The ablativus: This one has varying functions but it usually declares a place, direction, or how something is done "I go to school" or "I'm on the table" or "I eat soup with a spoon"

There are lots of exceptions on these general rules, as lots of verbs and other verbs always have certain declinations following them.
To give an example of how declinations are used, I'll show the declinations of servus (slave). The first five in singular, the next five in plural.

Servus
Servi
Servo
Servum
Servo

Servi
Servorum
Servis
Servos
Servis

Also you have male, female and objective (?) nouns, these also have different endings each.

[Vergilius]

M

dominus
domino
domini
dominum
domino

domini
dominorum
dominis
dominos
dominis


F

filia
filiae
filiae
filiam
filia

filiae
filiarum
filiis
filias
filiis

^
just some more declinations
^
just some more declinations

[Marcus Seneca Cato]

(I could suggest Peter Jone's little Learn Latin book, for those that would like to learn. While it doesn't cover everything, it does get through a good amount of the gramatical rules. And it is dirt cheap.)

[Dirk Gently]

Present Active of 'To Be', which is 'esse'

Sum
Es
Est
Summus
Estis
Sunt

Remarkably similar to the French 'Etre'

Je Suis
Es
Est
Sommes
êtes
Sont

[Centurion Quintus]

Could someone translate this for me?

Lux Et Veritas

Thanks.

[hormiga]

Originally posted by Centurion Quintus@Apr 12 2005, 12:29 PM
Could someone translate this for me?

Lux Et Veritas

Thanks.

Light and truth,

motto of Harvard?

[Dirk Gently]

Yes. Consider the Derived 'Veritable' in English and French, and the fact 'lux' is the unit in physics for illumination.

[Mordhak]

If I remember correctly, verbs are divided into 5 classes of conjugation, depending on their ending. The example verbs I learnt were:

Amare (to love), all verbs ending with -are are conjugated like this one:

amo
amas
amat

amamus
amatis
amant

Monere (to warn), all verbs ending with -ere are conjugated like this one:

moneo
mones
monet

monemus
monetis
monent

Audire (to hear), all verbs ending with -ere are conjugated like this one:

audio
audis
audit

audimus
auditis
audint

...and 2 more that I can't remember (it's a long time ago, really).

Please correct me if I made a mistake somewhere; I'm not 100% sure of these.

You should try to memorize these, as they will come in handy when building basic sentences. Do remember that these forms were only in the present simple... there are many many many more :mellow

[SoggyFrog]

For those studying out of the Cambridge Latin books, or learning it here, they have a great site:
http://www.cambridgescp.com/latin/clc/clc_home.html

I'm using Wheelock's so I have no such luxury :crying

[ParthianWarrior]

Also, Pronouncing nouns in Latin is different. For example. "I" is "Ee"

[Traianus]

Not all verbs ending on ERE are conjugated like monere. There's a bunch conjugated like tegere. They are pronounced differently as well.
If you really want to learn latin you should follow classes. It's just too hard to learn it on yer own

[wargod]

I took three years of Latin on the Cambridge course. My advice to anyone just starting out is to study hard and memorize the grammar quickly. I made the mistake of not studying and I fell behind. By the end, I was just staying on to learn about the history.

[Mordhak]

Not all verbs ending on ERE are conjugated like monere. There's a bunch conjugated like tegere.

Exactly... almost forgot about that one. In monere, the first E in -ere is pronounced as the letter A; in tegere that E is pronounced as U in the word BUG (well, kinda, but I guess you Anglo's will never be able to speak proper latin without a horrible accent).

[Gulielmus Vectis]

Originally posted by Traianus@Apr 12 2005, 08:57 PM
Not all verbs ending on ERE are conjugated like monere. There's a bunch conjugated like tegere. They are pronounced differently as well.

Hi I'm new!

Yeah theres two, but to tell the difference use them like this. Ones ending in -ére with a line above the first 'e' and others ending -ere. I use a Collins Latin dictionary and it says "all vowels known or believed by the best authorities to be long are marked by a line above them" But it seems like these forums wont let me do the letter with a line above it, so i'll do an é just to show the difference. Its actually a flat line above though.

So monére is condrugated like this: moneó, monés, monet, monémus, monétis, monent
But tegere is like this: tegó, tegis, tegit, tegimus, tegitis, tegunt; which is the same as -íre verbs

Although I'm not an expert I just got interested in Latin through Spanish, I just try to apply those rules etc. And being English it is hard to pronounce Latin, I just try to make it sound Spanish! It doesn't really matter seeing as no-one will understand you anyway.

*FIRST POST*