Post Here for Basic Help on Conjugations and Declensions

[blowe]

We will be happy to answer your questions on conjugations and declensions.

[tmkclscroggins]

We are having problems with LC1 , lesson 12. For some reason, I just can't seem to grasp the declensions. The nominative, dative, ablative, etc cases confuse me. I have never had any Latin. ANy help would be great! We just can't seem to move past this lesson. To be honest, we started getting confused several lessons ago. Do I need to just memorize the case endings/vocabulary with them and wait for later lessons to explain cases?

Melissa

[blowe]

We put up a page that provides additional explanation for conjugations and declensions. It explains what they are and how they are used. This explanation assumes that the concept of a conjugation or declension is new to you.

http://www.memoriapress.com/help/

[Steph]

We are on Lesson 8. I thought I was going along fine with not trying to understand declensions too much. But I hit a bump in the road with the 2nd Declension. My question is: Do all nouns go through all five declensions, or do certain declensions belong with certain nouns?

Thank you,
Steph

[Mungo]

Each noun belongs to only one declension, and all the nouns in a given declension behave the same way. In fact, that's the layperson's definition of a declension: a group of nouns that use the same set of endings. HTH!

[jeannine marie todd]

Good morning,
I printed out the teacher helps on Latin Conjugations and Declensions to give to the parents of my Latin students. I am new at teaching/learning Latin too. The helps say there are five declensions (yes, got that) and four conjugations. (I thought there were six conjugations; what ARE the four conjugations?)
Thank you,
Jeannine

[Martin Cothran]

Let me see if I can take a crack at this question that makes sense. First of all, what is a noun declension? A declension is a list of all the forms a noun can take given its role in a sentence.

In Latin, the role of a word in a sentence (in other words, whether it is the subject, the direct object, the indirect object, etc.) is determined by the ending or "form" it has. This doesn't make sense to a lot of people who are native English speakers because we don't do that. We determine what a word's role in a sentence is by its location in the sentence. In that respect, English is not a very "grammatical" language, whereas Latin is.

Let me give an example of what I mean. Let's just take two roles a word can have in a sentence: the subject, and the direct object. The subject is what the sentence is about. The direct object is what receives the action performed by the subject. Here are two examples:

The boy loves the girl.
The girl loves the boy.

In the first sentence, the boy is the subject, since 'boy' is what the sentence is about. In the second sentence, 'girl' is the subject because that's what that sentence is about. Also, in the first sentence, 'girl' is the direct object because it is receiving the action, and in the second, 'boy' is the object because it is receiving action.

But notice something about these two English sentences: the spelling of the words does not change, regardless of whether they are subjects or predicates. 'Boy' is spelled b-o-y whether it is the subject or the direct object. How do you know that it is the subject in one sentence and an object in the other? Largely because it comes before the verb (if it is the subject) or after it (if it is the direct object). You know whether it is the subject or direct object by its location.

One of the hardest things for English speakers to learn about Latin is that it doesn't operate this way. In Latin, the location doesn't tell you whether it is a subject or object, it is its form (or spelling) that tells you. Here are the above two sentences in Latin:

Puer puellam amat
Puerum puella amat.

Notice that the words have kept the same location in the sentence, but the first says, "The boy loves the girl," and the second says, "The girl loves the boy". How can this be? It is because of their form. In the first sentence 'puer' is in the nominative case (the case of the subject); in the second sentence ('puerum') it is in the accusative case (the case of the direct object), and 'puella' is in the nominative. So when you translate these sentences into English, you have to use English words and put it into English word order to say what the Latin says using its grammatical forms.

Note that often the subject will appear first, but in the Latin it doesn't have to. Word order is very fluid in Latin.

In a certain sense it involves a different way of thinking--a grammatical way of thinking. This is why Latin is so good in teaching grammar. Latin actually uses the grammatical cases, and you can see them because the words change their form to show them. When you try to teach the grammatical case in English, it is very hard because you can't see them.

What I just explained just covers two roles--nominative and accusative--that a word can have in a sentence. But there are three others. But it's the smae principle. The declension is just a list of all the forms that a noun can take that tells you what it is in the sentence, of which there are five in both the singular and plural: the subject (nominative case), the possessive (genitive case), the indirect object (dative case), the direct object (accusative case), and prepositional (ablative case).

I hope this helps.

[Dutch Thomson]

1. Do you know of a good automatic translation tool online?

2. Please tranlsate into Latin: The girl will call the soldier.

3. There were worksheets online at the Memoria Press website for Latina Christiana I, but I haven't seen any for LC II. Are there any worksheets for this 2nd book or any plans to develop some?

[Terri S.]

OK, I understand the basics of both declensions and conjugations, but I'm having trouble trying to figure out where/when to place accent marks. In addition, it seems that accent marks are inconsistent in both the TM and student books.

For example: sometimes laboro has an accent over the first "o" and other times it does not (for example on pages 8 &18 in LC1 student). Vocamus and vocatis have an accent over the "a" and other times do not (for example on pages 12 & 18 in LC1 student).

Are there general rules for accent marks?

Is an accent from the example form only in the 1st person singular? And is that only for present tense?

Do all 1st conjugation verbs have the accent in the "amus" and "atis"? What about other tenses?

With declensions, a similar thing happens with accents. Are the only cases with the accent the ones that are spelled like the nominitive, singular and genitive, plural?

I understand that it's a hassle to always change the font to insert the accents (I'm having an interesting time trying to make computer based flashcards), but it would help if the texts were consistent in their usage, or if there was a list of rules for accents.

Gratias tibi ago!

[mgoforth]

Hello!

I am newer to Latin than my 4th grade son who I am now trying to homeschool. He seems to tack those endings on with ease and has no trouble with the different cases and tenses.

I am beginning to wrap my brain around all that is in your great guide online (and in the Latin Christiana book) about conjugations and declensions, but you did not answer one question. In Latin what is the function of having 5 declension and 4 conjugations? Is there a reason or is it just that it is (like that some words are masculine) and therefore we need to learn them?

Thank you!

[fn220]

Please decline the noun "aqua" for me? Also fortuna,gloria, Gallia, Italia, & lingua. Some of these words end up with 2 vowels next to eachother (gloriis, Galliis, Italiis). Is this correct?

[tanya]

aqua fortuna gloria Gallia Italia lingua
aquae fortunae gloriae Galliae Italiae linguae
aquae fortunae gloriae Galliae Italiae linguae
aquam fortunam gloriam Galliam Italiam linguam
aqua fortuna gloria Gallia Italia lingua
aquae fortunae gloriae Galliae Italiae linguae
aquarum fortunarum gloriarum Galliarum Italiarum linguarum
aquis fortunis gloriis Galliis Italiis linguis
aquas fortunas glorias Gallias Italias linguas
aquis fortunis gloriis Galliis Italiis linguis

You are right about the extra i, but you'll never go wrong if you find the stem (by dropping the genitive singular ending) and write that stem 10 times, then add the endings.

Tanya