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Here is the new catch-up day post for the past two weeks: more 5th-declension nouns... and then the start of the plural nouns! (Just one lesson of plurals so far; we're just getting started.) As usual, there is a cat-show of those sayings, plus a link to the downloadable crossword and the self-quiz. Meanwhile, the very weird but fun Vergil project carries on; we're now on Lesson 52: A New…
We'll be starting a big new adventure today: the plural forms of nouns and of verbs. So far, all the nouns and verbs you have seen (with just a few exceptions) have been singular nouns and singular verbs. Now we will start working on plurals, beginning with plural nouns. No surprise: we'll start with the nominative plural form of feminine nouns of the 1st declension , which are the nouns we used…
The focus for today's lesson is finishing up the 5th declension with a few more common 5th-declension nouns: facies , "face" — acies , "sharp edge or point" —- and fides , "faith." Here's a reminder about the special endings: - es . nominative. fides - ei . genitive. fidei - em . accusative. fidem - e. ablative. fide - ei . dative. fidei And here is the slideshow (with cats) of the words you have…
I'm working on a new Latin nursery rhyme project, so instead of the usual vocabulary review, I'll be sharing a nursery rhyme here every other Friday, starting with a fun and easy one to sing: I made a Latin version of Frère Jacques. Here's the original: Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, Dormez-vous ? Dormez-vous ? Sonnez les matines! Sonnez les matines! Din dan don! Din dan don! This is the English…
The focus for today's lesson is some more sayings and proverbs with Latin res , that word with a hundred meanings: "thing, business, affair, doings, deed, matter," etc. And here is the slideshow (with cats) of the words you have seen before. There's only one truly new word today, and it's a really cool Latin word too — you actually know it as an English word and probably didn't even suspect it was…
The focus for today's lesson is one of the most common 5th-declension nouns: res , which means "thing, matter, affair, business," etc. You get the idea: it has a lot of meanings! You probably have used this Latin word without knowing it, because every time you type "re:" in a memo, you are saying re , the ablative form of res : "in the matter of." Many people think the "re" is short for…
Here is the new catch-up day post for the past two weeks of sayings using 5th-declension nouns, focusing on spes and dies . As usual, there is a cat-show of those sayings, plus a link to the downloadable crossword and the self-quiz. Meanwhile, the admittedly wacky Vergil project carries on; we're now on Lesson 40: A New Beginner's Latin: THE AENEID . Take a look if you are curious! And now here…
The focus for today's lesson is more sayings with dies. One thing you might notice is that dies is sometimes masculine — unus dies , "one day" — and sometimes feminine, una dies , "one day." There is not a hard-and-fast rule about that, although in general the masculine dies is more likely to refer to a 24-hour period or to a date on the calendar, especially a holiday, dies festus . Of course,…
The focus for today's lesson is more practice with 5th-declension nouns, using the word dies , "day," one of the most commonly used 5th-declension nouns. Latin dies is the root of English " diurnal " (as opposed to "nocturnal") and " diary ." It also gives us English " journal ," " journey " and " adjourn . " You can see Latin dies in English " dismal ," which comes from dies mali , "evil days."…
For the vocabulary practice this week, I picked sayings that either have SOV (subject-object-verb) word order or OV (object-verb), where the subject is not expressed directly. Latin has free word order, but this is the most common sentence pattern in Latin, and it's not a pattern you find in English, so it's good to practice! For each saying in the slideshow , you will try to supply the missing…
The focus for today's lesson is more about spes, hope! The word spes is the nominative form, spem is accusative, and spe is ablative. You will see examples of those three forms in today's sayings. And here is the slideshow (with cats) of the words you have seen before: And here are today's proverbs: 1. Non deest spes. Hope is-not lacking. Non deest spes. The new word in this saying is deest , de +…
The focus for today's lesson is the final declension: the fifth declension. There are not a lot of nouns in this declension, but some of the nouns are among the most common words in the Latin language. This week, we'll focus on the word spes , "hope." So, this week is going to be a week of hope. (I don't know about you, but that's something I could use right about now!) Here's how the 5th…
Here is the new catch-up day post for the past two weeks of sayings. As usual, there is a cat-show of those sayings, plus a link to the downloadable crossword and the self-quiz. Plus, in case you missed it: A New Beginner's Latin: THE AENEID . We've been at it for a few weeks now, and it's been very fun! (This is an experiment with a learner who took Latin literally 80 years ago... and wants to…
Today is the last round of practice with those fourth declension nouns, the sneaky ones ending in - us , with - um for the accusative, but with - us (- ūs ) for the genitive, - ui for the dative, and - u (- ū ) for the ablative. In today's sayings, there is a mix of accusative and ablative forms. And here is the slideshow (with cats) of the words you have seen before: And here are today's…
