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

There is life in the Latin Department, after a long hibernation (not death). To make things simpler, I intend to start teaching Latin on this thread rather than the old Beginners' Thread.

Let's begin.

Am confused by the 1st declension endings. My book tells me they go as follows:

Sing. Plural

Nom. silva silvae
Acc. silvam silvas
Gen. silvae silvarum
Dat. silvae silvis
Abl. silva silvis

Yet the web site says that all 1st declension endings are the same, with the exception of anima and filia, but goes on to give the following example:

Sing. Plural

Nom. carta carte
Acc. cartam cartas
Gen. carte cartarum
Dat. carte cartis
Abl. carta cartis

As you can see there is a difference so would appreciate your input.
Many thanks.
PS In case you're wondering I haven't got to the vocative yet!

Your book is correct. I can make no sense of the website's endings but if you give me the link I shall go have a look. Possibly they are for medieval Latin rather than good old Classical Latin. Trust the book.

Are you aware of the difference in vowel length between the nominative singular and the ablative singular?

Don't worry about the vocative. If it wanted to be taken seriously as a case it should have made more of an impact.

Hi all! I'm a beginner in Latin, am looking forward to working with you all.

Also see this site Latinum at my podcast.com very good mp3 dls for on the go
Evan has done much for the study of Latin

Cheers
Blake

Hi Blake.

I'm sorry that I haven't replied sooner - my internet is rebelling.

I would be very happy to try to teach you Latin. How much do you know already?

Thanks for getting back to me, I'm still in the stage of reading, disjointed words. listening to Evans courses, and wishing that I had examples of conversation, reading the classics in Latin, is all well and good, but it is not helping me, in my goal of being able to speak the language, I plan to ask Evan to see if he can get some conversations
going. Have you been to unilang.org/ net? interesting site.

Let me know what you think of Latinum/mypodcast.com

Where are you in the study of Latin?

Sorry this is rushed am multi tasking my gluteus maximus off

Cheers
Blake

Learning to speak Latin is certainly the hardest part - I started learning Latin on my own from a book, and so didn't learn the proper pronounciation for quite a while. My friends still mock my Latin pronounciation. I'm currently taking A-level Latin and will be studying Latin and Classics at university from October.

I haven't heard of the sites you mentioned, but will have a look at them soon.

In my role of supposed teacher, I suggest that you have a look at the Cambridge Schools Classics Project site. It has Latin texts for translation and grammar exercises at every level from complete beginnger to GCSE standard.

Do you know about the declensions for nouns?

The new beginners thread seems to be a bit slow
Come on lets Latinate........Latinate!?

Hell, after I master English I'll be back

Feel free to ask me any grammar related questions. I'm happy to teach, but I need to know what you would like to be taught.

Do you know:
- that Latin is an inflected language, and what that means?
- the various cases that nouns can take?
- the five noun declensions?
- the various tenses/moods/voices that verbs can take?
- the four verb conjugations?

Anyone there?