If you are a non-native learner of, for example, French – or, indeed, English, you may be familiar with the term “irregular” verb; these are verbs which do not follow the normal pattern of endings, for example:
I work – I worked; I play – I played; I jump – I jumped
but:
I swim – I swam; I see – I saw; I sing – I sang; note: at
the risk of being pedantic, these verbs are technically not irregular
but, as in German, strong verbs that undergo a vowel change. However, most
books teaching English refer to them as irregular which is an easier way to
deal with them.
Latin has very few irregular verbs but, as in English,
French and German, the verb ‘to be’ is completely irregular. Latin, however, is
far more user-friendly since it retains personal endings, including -m which
is also an indicator of the first person singular and will come up again later
when dealing with other verbs and tenses:
esse │ to be
sum │ I am
es │ you (singular) are
est │ he / she / it is; note: est can stand
alone as the equivalent of English there is i.e. indicating the
existence of something
sumus │ we are
estis │ you (plural)
sunt │ they are; note again that, like est, sunt
can translate as there are
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