h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ecce homo qui est faba - good job; where'd you find that?

Well, I'm a horribly inexperienced (and somewhat lazy) teacher, so I like to ask my students for some help. Is there any particular direction you'd *like* to go in? More grammar, or more context? Stories or plain sentences? Just let me know what direction you want to go in, and that's the direction we'll go in.

The fact that you're familiar with French is very helpful. I'm just starting French, and I'm learning that the two languages are very much alike - which is hardly surprising, as the one was descended from the other.

Yay, more people.

Teacher, I'm slightly confused on what I'm supposed to be learning.

Hem... Hem... Hem...

Right, you two. Let's get down to business...

Or not...

Well, I guess I'd better think of something for us to do.

I know! Let's have a lesson on personal pronouns! This is not a particularly useful thing, as Latin rarely uses personal pronouns (I, you, he, etc.) since that sort of thing can all be expressed within a noun or a verb. But here they are anyway, for your reference. We'll start with 'I', since we're all terribly self-centred in our hearts:

Ego, 'I'
Nom. ego
Gen. mei
Dat. mihi
Acc. me
Abl. me

Nom. nos
Gen. nostrum or nostri
Dat. nobis
Acc. nos
Abl. nobis

I suppose that now might be a good time to introduce our new friend to the five major declensions. You can find these earlier in the convo (I think), but all the same it can't hurt to have a little review.

Nominative - the subject of the sentence. 'I' is in the nominative case, for example, as it always is the subject of the sentence. Sort of like in French, saying 'Je suis...' where 'Je' is in the nominative.

Genitive - the possessive. For example, if you were using, in a sentence, the phrase 'Echo's posting', 'Echo's' would be genitive because it's possessing the 'posting'.

Dative - the indirect object. For example, when something is given 'to' someone, a dative is used to indicate the 'someone'. That's its most common use, though there are some others that I won't trouble you with now.

Accusative - the direct object. This is the thing that the action is being done to. For example, in the sentence 'I ate a salad,' salad would be the direct object (often just shortened to object) since it's the thing being eaten. 'Me' is also an object, and therefore you'll find the word in the accusative case above.

Ablative - practically every other use, including describing when and where something's happening, and who or what it's happening with and who's making the happening happen. A bit confusing.

So, that having been said, let's move onto the second person - that's 'you'. Yes, folks, you're going to have to think about something besides yourselves now.

Tu, 'you'
Nom. tu
Gen. tui
Dat. tibi
Acc. te
Abl. te

Nom. vos
Gen. vestrum or vestri
Dat. vobis
Acc. vos
Abl. vobis


Did you get that? All right... now let's review. Elwyn, you can tell me the nominative plural form of 'ego'. And vamster, let's have you try for the accusative singular form of 'tu'. No cheating, now! (Though of course you can look at the lists above if you want to.)

Acc sing. :Te

As in Laudaumus te!- we praise you
(ok, so I got the from a piece of music... but it helps me remember!)

I didn't realise the acc, dat etc related to pronouns in that way. I understand the subject, direct, indirect and possessive from French. I came across the other temrs once in German, but i never needed to learn them

It's the theme tune to Mr. Bean!

It's "Laudamus te" - you had an extra 'u' - but nice recall anyway. These random Latin expressions that we sometimes have thrown into our daily lives are called 'sententiae', which means 'sentences' or, more figuratively, 'sayings'. These could include famous words like 'Carpe diem!' (seize the day) or 'Amor vincit omnia' (love conquers all - yeah right).

Some people, by the way, tend to be confused about how to pronounce Latin. There are two schools of pronunciation: the classical and the ecclesiastical, but since what I'm learning and what I'm trying to teach you is classical Latin, that's the pronunciation we'll use.

There are a few important points to classical pronunciation, and the first important one is: never use Italian as your guide to how things should be pronounced. Ecclesiastical does that, and it just ends up sounding odd. There are a few different rules. The first one is that the letter 'v' is always pronounced as a 'w', so that the word 'vincit' above would be pronounced 'WIN-kit'. The letter 'c' is always hard - a 'k' sound instead of an 's' sound. All letters are pronounced - so 'carpe' would be pronounced 'CAR-pay'. The 'i' that comes at the end of a word (like in 'patri' - of the father) is pronounced with an 'ee' sound, like 'PAHT-ree'. The 'ae' diphthong that appears in words like 'feminae' (women) is pronounced 'ai' - thus, 'fem-in-AI' - rhymes with, when pronounced in English, the zodiac sign Gemini. Though in Latin, Gemini would be pronounced how? Any guesses?

I think that's it on pronunciation, but do try to hear the words in your head like that. When I actually had Latin in school five days a week, I became so immersed in it that I actually started pronouncing English 'v's with a 'w' sound!

*sags in her chair*
Let's see... the nominative plural form of 'ego' would be we...
*consults the chart*
nos

*prints out list*

did i sense cynicism in that first sentence?!
I have another (mock?) latin phrase, u triggered the memory- "Carpe Jugulum"! It's the title of a Terry Pratchett about vampires

Gemini would be gem-ee-nee Would the G be a "j" as in "jam", or a "g" as in "go"? I'm guessing jam.

Give us another verb question, for practice..please.

What's teach in latin?

I meant teacher. So we can go, thank you o teacher. or something, lol
Laudamus te! (2 u's)

Yes, Elwyn, it's 'nos' - nice job reading the chart!

'G' is hard, vamster, meaning that it's pronounced as in 'go'.

Interestingly, 'jugulum' can't be real Latin, because in Latin there's no letter 'j'. You'd have to say 'iugulum'. I take it that's meant to mean 'throat', but I'm really not sure.

Right... verbs... since I mentioned the basics in post 8, which you can refer back to if you want, I'll go on to discuss conjugations.

There are five of these, but we'll start with the first three to keep things simple.

The first conjugation, helpfully known as 'first conjugation' is identified by the fact that the infinitive form (the 'to be' form, such as 'laudare') ends in -are. Since vamster is familiar with 'laudare' (to praise), we'll use this verb to discuss the first conjugation.

First conjugation is simpler than some of the others, since all you have to do to form verbs (as discussed in post 8) is to remove the 're' and add a personal ending: -o means 'I', -s means 'you', -t means 'he/she/it', -mus means 'we', -tis means plural 'you' and -nt means 'they'. The only case when you remove the whole 'are' is in the first person. You'd say laudo instead of *laudao, but you'd say laudas.

Second conjugation is also simple. It has an 'e' instead of an 'a', so a second conjugation infinitive might look like this: 'monere', which means to warn or advise. You just remove the 're' and add the endings, as in first conjugation. So, 'I warn' would be 'moneo', 'you warn', 'monet', etc.

We'll skip third conjugation for now, since it's somewhat irregular, and move on to fourth. In fourth conjugation the infinitives have 'i' in them: audire, to hear, is a fourth conjugation verb. Again, just take off the 're' and add the endings: audio, audis, audit, etc.


All right, questions and review. Elwyn, answer the odd ones; and vamster, answer the even ones - that way you're not both posting answers to the same questions.

A. Identify the conjugation (1st, 2nd or 4th) of the following verbs:

1. amare, to love

2. debere, to owe

3. valere, to be strong

4. venire, to come

5. ornare, to furnish

6. mollire, to soften


B. Select one of your verbs to conjugate (this means to list it in all its forms).

So you want to know 'teacher' in Latin? 'Magister' if talking to a male, 'Magistra' if talking to a female.

I happen to be female, so you could say 'Thank you, oh teacher' by saying 'Gratias, O magistra'. 'Gratias' literally means 'thanks', by the way.

Hello. I too would also like to learn Latin, mostly becuase I am interested in a) the ancient roman civilisation and b) how languages have developed.

I have no experience of latin at all, except for the occasional look at latin phrases on various intenet sites, and so I know two phrases. Or I think I do.

I have/am/are tryign to get out of studying French, and I'm not too bad on picking up grammar rules.

Please teach me. I promise to try not to be too much of a nuisance.

Hey Madathens! If i were you, i'd read the conversation that's gone before,

Right, here goes.

A
2. debere, to owe= 2nd conj. (like debt)
4. venire, to come= 4th conj. (like venir, Fr for to come)
6. mollire, to soften = 4th conj.

B
debere- to owe
I - debo
you(sing)- debes
he/she/it- debet
we-debemus
you(pl)- debetis (is this also formal, like in French?)
they- debent

Magistra is like Magistrix in a book,which menat a teacher of magic.I should really stop these mock references, but hey help me to remember.

Gratias, O Magistra. Audio te!

OOC: Happy Mother's day
I hope this is it.

A. identify
amare, to love = first conjugation
valere, to be strong = second conjugation
ornare, to furnish = first conjugation

B. conjugate

ornare, to furnish
I - orno
You (informal) - ornas
He/she/it - ornat
We - ornamus
You (formal) - ornatis
They - ornant

valere, to be strong
I - valeo
You (informal) - vales
He/she/it - valet
We - valemus
You (formal) - valetis
They - valent

Gratias, O magistra

Ok, I've read everything before. I'll probably have to read it a few more times before I completely understand it.

Hi MadAthena Glad to hear you want to learn Latin! If you're interested in joining this department, you need to go over and join the Language Thing (see the banner at the top of the department page) so that Kat (head of the Language Thing) can put you on the lists. I'm glad to hear you've read the previous bits of the conversation, though, that'll stand you in good stead on the rare occasions that I actually try a bit of sporadic teaching.

Nice job, Elwyn

Nice job too, vamster, but you just made one error. 1st conjugation is the only one we've learned so far where you take off the -are. In the other conjugations you just take off the -re, so the 1st person form of 'debere' would be 'debeo'. You guys are all doing really well, though.

And BTW, I encourage you to make connections and all that. If it helps you retain vocabulary, it's an excellent idea.

Question.
Is there a specific tense for the future?

Yes, there is. Shall we discuss tenses then? There are six indicative active tenses. Don't even start thinking about the passive or subjunctive yet! BTW, indicative means what's happening in a concrete sense, not what would or could happen, and passive is the opposite of active, which I *really* don't want to explain...

We'll concentrate on the three tenses that use forms you're already familiar with.

Present: you've already learned this. The endings, to review, are -o, -s, -t, -mus, -tis, -nt. (And by the way, since you were wondering, there are no formal/informal constructions in Latin.)

Imperfect: These still use almost the same six personal endings, but you also stick a 'ba' in. So you have:
-bam (I was doing...)
-bas (You were doing...)
-bat (He/she/it was doing...)
-bamus (We were doing)
-batis (You pl. were doing...)
-bant (They were doing...)

Thus, to conjugate 'amo' in the imperfect: amabam, amabas, amabat, amabamus, amabatis, amabant.

Future: For first and second conjugations, you do just the same thing, except with slightly different endings:

-bo (I will do...)
-bis (You will do...)
-bit (He/she/it will do...)
-bimus (We will do...)
-bitis (You pl. will do...)
-bunt (They will do...)

Hence, you have something like: amabo, amabis, amabit, amabimus, amabitis, amabunt.

For fourth conjugation, you do something rather different. You drop off the *entire* 'ire' (not just the 're'), and then you add on an 'a', and then the basic personal endings, thus:

audiam, audias, audiat, audiamus, audiatis, audiant.


If you all get that, I'd like you to pick one of the verbs we've learned and conjugate it in imperfect and future. Once we've got that under our belts, I'd like us to move on to nouns. Then we can start in on *sentences*!!!

You're both doing great, seeing the huge amount of material that I'm shoving onto you in such a small amount of time.

I'm thinking of writing a whole Latin tutorial with Guide entries. What do you think?

Go for it o magistra!


Imperfect
Ornare, to furnish
Ego - ornabam
Tu - ornabas
He/she/it - ornabat
Nos - ornabamus
Vos - ornabatis
They - ornabant

Future
Valere, to be strong
Ego - valebo
Tu - valebis
He/she/it - valebit
Nos - valebimus
Vos - valebitis
They - valebunt

of me, but the valere conjugations are beginning to look like illnesses.

Perfect!

Thank the light for french