06.04.27: Level 1; First Latin Lessons (11); verb sum, esse

I: Incola Britanniae sum. Soror mea incola Hiberniae est. Sed patria nostra est America, et amīcī patriae nostrae sumus.

II: Nunc in Americā es, sed America nōn est patria tua. Cūr nōn amīcus Americae es? Cūr Americam nōn amās?

III: Nunc in Italiā estis. In Italiā sumus. Italia est terra pulchra. Sed Italia nōn est patria nostra. Italiam saepe laudāmus, sed Americam amāmus.

IV: Ex fenestrā meā noctū stellās spectō. Saepe lūnam quoque spectō. Lūna nunc obscūra est, sed stellae clārae sunt.

V: Ex viā fenestram tuam vidēmus. Fenestra aperta est. Soror tua ex fenestrā puellās in viā spectat. Cūr soror tua nōn in viā cum puellīs est?

VI: Soror mea aegra est. Māter mea est misera quod soror mea est aegra.

VII: Nunc incola Americae sum. Fīliae poētae sunt in Hiberniā. In patriā pulchrā estis. In casā cum nautā sumus. Stellās spectō sed lūnam nōn videō.

(1) vocabulary

[a]

In, for example, dictionaries and vocabulary lists, nouns are most often given with two (or three) pieces of information. This is done to classify the nouns according to declension:

lūna, -ae [1/f]: moon

[i] lūna, [ii] -ae (iii) [1/f]: moon

[i] the nominative case

[ii] the genitive case singular; this is the key piece of information since the genitive singular is different for all noun declensions

[iii] the declension number and gender

stella, -ae [1/f]: star

[b]

• amīcī: friends
• aegra: ill
• clāra: bright, clear; famous
• misera: unhappy
• noctū: at night
• obscūra: dim
• quod: because
• spectō: I watch, look at

(2) Latin verbs have three basic descriptions:

[i] person, and [ii] number

[i] The person refers to who is performing the action; this can be a pronoun e.g. I walk, she praises, or a noun e.g. The girl praises.

[ii] The person can be either singular or plural:

Singular: I walk, he learns, the student learns

Plural: we walk, they learn, the students learn

[iii] tense: this indicates when the action happened, happens or will happen. The term ‘tense’ has three broad categories.

Present: I walk / I am walking

Past: (but Latin has several different ways of expressing the past): I walked; I have walked etc.

Future: I shall walk

(2) Latin verbs are conjugated i.e. they have a set of endings that indicate the person, tense and number of the verb, for example:

Stellās spectō | I look at / am looking at the stars.

Cūr Americam nōn amās? | Why do you not like America?

Soror tua puellās in viā spectat. | Your sister looks at / is looking at the girls in the street.

Italiam saepe laudāmus. | We often praise Italy.

Ex viā fenestram tuam vidēmus. | We see your window from the street.

We will begin to look at this in more detail in the next units.

(3) Most Latin verbs are regular i.e. they use a common pattern of endings. There are, however, a few verbs that are irregular: they are formed in their own way. The most important of these is esse (to be). The present tense forms of esse are in bold in the text.

esse: to be; in grammar, this is known as the infinitive i.e. the form of the verb before it is conjugated

sum: I am

es: you (singular)* are

est: he / she / it is

sumus: we are

estis: you (plural)* are

sunt: they are

*Latin has two different ways of expressing the second person (you):

2^nd person singular: talking to one person

2^nd person plural: talking to more than one person

Unlike other languages which also have more than one way of expressing ‘you’ e.g. French (tu, vous) and German (du, ihr, Sie), the choice in Latin is not determined by the age or status of the person. Whether you were talking to one slave or one emperor, the same second person singular form was used. Likewise, when Caesar was addressing his soldiers or the important members of the Senate, he used the second person plural form.

(4) The image shows the key terms used when describing a verb:

infinitive; tense; person (1^st / 2^nd / 3^rd); number (singular / plural)

LINKS

23.02.24: verb esse (to be); talking about jobs

https://adckl.blogspot.com/2024/04/verb-esse-to-be-talking-about-jobs-esse.html

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I: I am an inhabitant of Britain. My sister is an inhabitant of Ireland. But our homeland is America, and we are friends of our homeland.

II: You are now in America, but America is not your homeland. Why are you not a friend of America? Why do you not love America?

III: You are now in Italy. We are in Italy. Italy is a beautiful land. But Italy is not our homeland. We often praise Italy, but we love America.

IV: At night I look at the stars from my window. I often look at the moon too. The moon is now dark, but the stars are bright.

V: We see your window from the street. The window is open. Your sister looks at the girls in the street from the window. Why is your sister not in the street with the girls?

VI: My sister is ill. My mother is unhappy because my sister is ill.

VII: I am now an inhabitant of America. The poet's daughters are in Ireland. You are in a beautiful homeland. We are in the house with the sailor. I look at the stars, but I do not see the moon.