Talk:Latin/Lesson 1-Nominative

Declension?
Like the editor of "Pronunciation?", I'm attempting to learn Latin via this book, however, on the vocabulary lists māter, triclīnium, and templum don't match any of the nominative endings that we're given in the previous table. I'm assuming they're third declension, but clarification would be nice.

The last word in the first homework sentence should perhaps be 'malus', not 'magnus'. Would it be a good idea to give the English of these sentences in Lesson 4?

Pronunciation?
I haven't read the book, and don't speak latin, but I'm hoping to and this might be a good section to add proper pronunciation of words.

I've improved upon the pronunciation section in the last page so that it's more than just a link.

Example
I'm attempting to learn Latin from this book and seem to have spotted something inconsistent on this page. With the fourth example given in the "Examples" section, "poēta est bonus" the declensions are different in gender. If this is an exception to the rule that all adjectives must have the same gender, case and number as the noun it is describing, I think this should be explicitly stated, otherwise this could be confusing. - Nibjib (talk) 20:19, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

-Poeta is actually a masculine word, owing to the fact that it describes a traditionally masculine profession. There are a variety of words in the first declension that operate in this way, including nauta, poeta, and agricola. Furthermore, there are some words in the second declension, mainly trees, that are feminine. However, the most obvious example of cross gender words in unusual declensions is "manus" of the 4th, which is feminine, and not masculine as is the case with most of the declension.

-Asv

Furthur Examples
Why are these different from the examples preceding it? The "Furthur Examples" say "Triclinium magnum est" is wrong, and "Tricilinium est magnum" is correct. Yet in the "Examples", all the Latin sentences are constructed in this manner, i.e. "Puellae bonae sunt", and not "Puellae sunt bonae".

Which is correct? -Anam

Actually, in this case, and most cases, it does not matter because you can tell what it means either way. However, it is much more common to use subject-adjective-verb format, so one would normally use "Triclinium magnum est". There is not a "wrong" sentence structure in Latin, although with longer sentences it may often be confusing, so it is usually better to use the common nom-adj-vb format.

-Froggyfred

...Except in the case of est, where the neutral sentence is X est Y. Moving est to the end gives you emphasis. Verbs that normally come in the middle of two nominatives are called copulative verbs (because they equate, or link, or copulate, one thing to another). Some others are: apparēre, vidēri, manēre. Consider:


 * Est puella. There is a girl.
 * Puella est. It is a girl (as opposed to a boy).
 * Puella est bona. The girl is good.
 * Est puella bona. There is a good girl.
 * Puella bona est. The girl is good (as opposed to bad).
 * Bona est puella. Good is what the girl is (as opposed to bad).
 * Bona puella est. What is good is the girl (as opposed to the boy).


 * Puer videtur fessus. The boy seems tired.
 * Puer fessus videtur. The boy seems tired (as opposed to energetic).
 * Fessus videtur puer. Tired is what the boy seems (as opposed to energetic).
 * Videtur puer fessus. He seems (to be) a tired boy.

Note that the translations are colloquial, not literal, because a literal translation would not convey the nuances of the word order.

See, for example, D'Ooge ¶28. --Robert.Baruch (discuss • contribs) 19:34, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

May I rewrite this Lesson?
Would anyone mind if I rewrite this lesson. I would like to restrict the amount of information presented to the reader and to refocus the lesson so it is easy and to provide more extensive translation sentences. The usual beginners sentences "the girl is..., the boy is..., the girl carries..., the boys are, the girls are,.

Basically restrict the lesson to subject, verb and object using 1st declension feminine nouns and 2nd declension masculine nouns. For example one of the sentences given in Latin is "The father is large". Also I would like to avoid using neuter nouns straight away and the emphatic forms of "to be" - I mean "ego sum" is fine but shouldn't Lesson One be restricted to just "sum, es, est, sumus, estis and sunt". I mean in the sense that these are listed without vos, tu, ego.

I thought I'd ask because I do tend to extensively rework material.

Replies welcome

Sluffs (discuss • contribs) 01:19, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Placeholder for material
I've removed this section because the Genitive Singular is the same as the Nominative Plural. Without a noun declined fully through the six cases it hardly helps. I'll add the noun table at some stage.

START

Grammar: Pluralizing Nominatives
To pluralize most first and second declension nouns, replace the singular suffix with the equivalent plural suffix. All adjectives that describe the noun must be pluralized as well because adjectives must agree in case, number, and gender. With the adjectives given, use first declension with feminine nouns and second declension with masculine nouns. In English we use the same nominative plural endings for words we have borrowed from Latin, so it may be helpful to remember we say one vertebr-a but two vertebr-ae, one radi-us but two radi-ī, and one medium but multi-medi-a.

END

Sluffs (discuss • contribs) 21:27, 11 August 2016 (UTC)