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[catsharo-blog]

I agree that the best way to fully grasp the concept of particples is to continue practicing translating sentences. This is something that has I worked for me and also something I plan to continue using. 

Perfect Participles

Perfect participles are pretty straightforward and easy to grasp once you know how to form them. First, take the 4th principle part of the word. Then, add a 1st or 2nd declension ending. 

Example) Amatus, a, um 

Now, the translation is having been _____ed 

Example) having been loved 

For me, this was easy to grasp and understand. The only tricky part for me was remembering that perfect participles take a 1st or 2nd declension endings, not a 3rd. Sometimes, I would confuse which endings the perfect participle take and the present. However, once I continued to practice with sentences in class, and at home, it was easier to recognize and distinguish perfect participles from present.

Once thing to note is that, for perfect participles, there will be NO form of the verb “to be” / esse next to the 4th principle part. 

Here is an example of a full sentence translation: 

Latin: Filia a patre laudata laeta est.

English: The girl having been praised by the father is happy.

We know that laudata is a perfect participle because its in the 4th principle part, and it has a 1st declension ending on it, -a. This means that it gets the translation of having been ___ed. So, laudata gets translated to having been praised.  

I plan on continuing to practice and recognize perfect participles for future translations. I will do this through reviewing my notes and practicing forming and translating perfect participles. 

Hope this helped!!  

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Cum Clauses

Cum clauses occur if ‘cum’ is not followed by a noun in the ablative noun and the sentence includes a subjunctive verb in its phrase. This makes the cum clauses easy to identify. If this is the case, then ‘cum’ will be translated in either a cum circumstantial clause (when) or in a cum causal clause (since/because). Unfortunately, you will not which one to use until the sentence is translated fully, meaning you must choose after translating. This can make translations harder since you don’t know which one you are going to use. 

Clause #1: Cum Circumstantial Clause

The cum clause is a cum circumstantial clause when ‘cum’ is translated as when. For example: 

Cum senex manūs lavisset, in capite unius e pueris tersit.

When the old man washed his hands, he dried them on the head of one of the boys.

In this sentence, when works best therefore making it a cum circumstantial clause. However, this would not have be known from simply looking at the Latin sentence. 

Clause #2: Cum Causal Clause

The cum clause is a cum causal clause when ‘cum’ is translated as since or because. For example:

Cum calorem et vaporem vix pati possent, haud multum morabantur.

Because they were barely able to endure the heat and vapor, they did not delay much.

In this sentence, because works best therefore making it a cum causal clause. You could have also put the word since in the English translation. However, you would not have known what type of clause it was from simply looking at the Latin sentence. 

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Future Active Participles

Participles are verbal adjectives, meaning they describe the noun. In Latin, they have the same case, number, and gender as the noun. To create the future active participle, you take the fourth principle part of the verb and add -ur before the ending of the word. (e.g. laudatus --> laudaturus). The endings change depending on the noun. Future active participles are translated into English as “about to _____”. 

Using Future Active Participles in a Sentence:

Senatores in tricliniō cenaturos viderunt.

They saw the senators about to dine in the dining room.

This sentence was a little tricky because the senators are not the subject, but other than that it was easy. The cenaturos is the participle and it matches the case, number, and gender as senators, the noun it is describing. Make sure you remember that the -ur means a future translation. 

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Infinitives

Infinitives signify continuous and subject-less actions. They are always translated into English as “to _____”. Similarly to other verbs, infinitives come in three tenses (present, perfect, and future) and two voices (active and passive). 

To form the present active infinitive, you simply need the second principle part of the verb in its normal form. This form ends in a ‘-re’ which makes it easy to find. This is translated in English as “to _____”. 

Example: ambulare --> to walk

To form the present passive infinitive, you use the second principle part. Next you take off the ‘e’ on the ending and then replace it with an “i”.

Example: ambulare --> ambulari

However, if the verb is third conjugation, you take off the whole “-ere” ending and replace it with “i”. 

Example: effugere --> effugi

Present active infinitive are translated in English as “to be _____ed”. 

Example: amari --> to be loved

To form the perfect active infinitive, you take the third principle part and add “sse”. 

Example: amavi --> amavisse 

Perfect active infinitives are translated as “to have ______ed”.

Example: amavisse --> to have loved

To form the perfect passive infinitive, you take the fourth principle part and the word esse after it.

Example: amatus --> amatus esse

Perfect passive infinitives are translated into English as “to have been ____ed”.

Example: amatus esse --> to have been loved 

To form the future active infinitive, you take the future active participle and add the word esse after it. 

Example: amaturus --> amaturus esse 

This is translated into English as “to be about to ___ ”.

Example: amaturus esse --> to be about to love

Using infinitives in the sentence:

Effugere non poterimus.

This is translated into English as: We were not able to flee.

Because the infinitive is present active, which you can tell by its ending, it is translated as “to ____”. Something to remember when translating is to make sure that you identify what voice and tense your infinitive is. This will make it easier to translate. There is nothing too difficult when it comes to infinitives as long as you pay attention. 

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Indefinite Adjectives

Indefinite adjectives describe a person, place, or thing (noun). They are translated as “certain”. They match the case, number, and gender of the noun that they describe. As you can see in the following chart, indefinite adjectives are based off of relative pronoun. For a majority, you simply add ‘dam’ to end of the relative pronoun to make the indefinite adjective. However, you have to remember that ‘m’ cannot come before the ‘dam’, so you must change to ‘m’ to a ‘n’. 

Using Indefinite Adjectives in a Sentence:

When translating into English: remember to translate as “certain”

When translating into Latin: pay attention to case, number, and gender - don’t forget ‘dam’

Now we were in the small boat for many days when we were found by certain merchants.

Iam multos dies in scaphā eramus cum ā mercatoribus quibusdam inventi sumus.

Indefinite adjectives are easy to identify because of their ‘dam’ ending. You must remember to apply the appropriate case, number, and gender to the indefinite adjective, which can hard sometimes. Over time this will become easier if you memorize the chart above, a trick I use and plan to continue using. 

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Comparative Adjectives

Comparative adjective enable you to create a comparison between two nouns (e.g. this penguin is fatter than that penguin). When translating into English, you add -er, rather, or more to the translation of the word (e.g. brighter, rather bright, more bright). It is easy to remember to add these words if you remember that these comparative words must be added to comparative adjectives. This is a strategy that I use when working with comparative adjectives. 

To create the Latin comparative form:

1. Isolate the stem - take off the endings that made it first, second, or third declension (e.g. audax, audacis --> audac_)

2. Add -ior to the isolated stem - (e.g. audacior)

3. Decline with 3rd declension endings - it can be hard to remember that even if the adjective was not originally third declension, it still receives third declension endings (e.g. clarior, clarioris, clariori, clariorem, clariore, clariores, clariorum, clarioribus, clariores, clarioribus).

Using comparatives in sentences: 

1. Nominative nouns and adjectives and uses quam - quam means ‘than’ and is used in the comparison of the nouns. Sentences with quam are easier to translate because all the words needed for the translation are there.

e.g. Elephanti sunt graviores quam canes. This would be translated as: The elephants are heavier than the dogs.

2. Using ablative of comparison - no quam is used but instead the noun being compared to the subject is put into the ablative case. Due to rule of Ablative of comparison, the noun in the ablative case gets translated with ‘than’. Sentences like these can be harder to translate because you have to remember yourself to translate with the word than. 

e.g. Elephanti sunt graviores canibus. This would be translated as: The elephants are heavier than the dogs.

Irregulars: these words have different comparative forms than their positive forms

bonus, a, um (good) --> melior, melius (better)

malus, a, um (bad) --> peior, peius (worse)

magnus, a, um (big, great) --> maior, maius (bigger, greater)

parvus, a, um (small) --> minor, minus (smaller, lesser)

multus, a, um (much) --> plus (more) --> SINGULAR ONLY

multi, ae, a (many) --> plures, plura (more) --> PLURAL ONLY

[catsharo-blog]

The tricks that you say here are very helpful and I’ll make sure to remember them when working with geographical grammar in the future! It can be really helpful that ab (meaning away) is the beginning of ablative which is what you use when going away from a place. 

Geographical Grammar

Geographical Grammar is used for proper nouns/place names: e.g.) Italia, Sparta, etc. There are two exception; domus which means home, and rus which means country. 

Furthermore, if the you are going TO the place, make the proper noun ACCUSATIVE to indicate the motion TOWARD it. A way I remember to make the proper noun accusative is to remember AD and its translation. AD is translated as to, toward, and it is always followed by a word in the ACCUSATIVE case. Here is an example:

English: To Greece               Latin: Graeciam  (acc)        

If you are coming FROM the place, make the proper noun ABLATIVE to indicate the motion FROM/AWAY FROM it. A way I remember to make the proper noun ABLATIVE is to remember AB and its translation. AB is translated as from, by, and it is always followed by a word in the ABLATIVE case. Here is an example: 

English: From Greece            Latin: GraeciA   (abl) 

If the sentence says in____, then the proper noun needs to be in the locative case. Now, this can seem a little confusing because we don’t normally work with the locative case. However, a trick to memorizing the locative case is knowing that it is the SAME as the dative case. Here is an example:

English: In Greece               Latin: Graeciae (same as dative in the feminine                                                                                                             declension)

Geographical grammar was not hard to grasp. The only tricky part was knowing what case the proper noun needs to be in for certain sentences. However, these tricks from above helped me understand and memorize what case the proper noun should be in according to what the sentence is saying. I will continue to use these tricks when translating sentences involving geographical grammar. This will help me maintain my confidence when dealing with geographical grammar.       

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Ablative Absolutes

Ablative absolutes are phrases that give context to a sentence. They pair a noun with a participle to create a complete phrase. They usually come at the beginning of the sentence, making them easily identified, and they explain why or when the rest of the sentence takes place. 

To create an ablative absolute in Latin, there are a few necessary components. First, you need a noun in the ablative case. Then you need a participle of any tense and it must agree with the noun in gender (e.g. servō vocatō - the ending on vocatō matches the gender of servus). It is good to identify the gender of the noun first so that creating the participle is easier. Once you know what the gender of the noun is, you simply add the corresponding ending to the participle. 

When translating an ablative absolute, you need to make sure that your translation starts with neither one of the Latin words. Ablative absolutes always must start with since, while, when, after, or because (these words can be remembered with the mnemonic device SWAB). It can be tricky to remember to add one of these when translating because the word is not included in the Latin translation. 

For example:

Convivis bibentibus, servi in triclinium secundam mensam attulerunt

While the dinner guests were drinking, the slaves brought a second table into the dining room. 

For this sentence, ‘convivis’ is the ablative Latin translation of ‘the dinner guests’. The participle ‘bibentibus’ is present so it is translated as ‘were drinking’ and note that it matches convivis in gender. Finally, ‘while’ is added to the beginning of the English translation because you must always remember to add a SWAB word in the beginning. The mnemonic SWAB is something I plan to continue to use to remember to add ‘since, while, when, after, or because’ before the ablative absolute. 

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Relative Pronouns

A relative pronoun refers back to a noun used previously in the sentence. It describes or qualifies the noun and it kicks off the relative clause. The clause is a complete phrase with a verb. 

 When creating a relative pronoun in Latin, it is important to make sure that the pronoun has the same gender and number as its antecedent (the noun it is describing). However, the relative pronoun does not get its case from the antecedent but instead gets its case from how it is used in the relative clause. It can be difficult to determine what case to use when going from English to Latin. This is something I have struggled with. But determining what is the relative pronoun and its position in the relative clause, is something that helps me translate. 

For example:

The slave, who works in the house, is happy. 

 Servus, qui in villā laborat, est laetus.

The word who is the relative pronoun, and it describes the slave. ‘Who’ would be in the nominative case, and since it is describing one man it is in the masculine form and it is singular. This means that the Latin translation of the pronoun would be qui (nominative singular masculine). 

Here is a chart to help you figure out which pronoun to use:

[catsharo-blog]

This strategy that you use is also something I use. Identify the parts of the sentence before translating is usually very beneficial for me and I plan to continue to use it also. I also make sure to make note of the tenses of the verbs because the tense of the head verb can affect the translation of the infinitive. This may be helpful too! Thanks for your latin tips :)

Indirect Statements

At first, indirect statements were a little confusing because it was hard to identify what tense the verb was in. However, once I started to practice and familiarize myself with the each tense and their basic translation, the sentences became easier to understand. Also identifying the head verb, accusative subject, and verb helped me when translating the sentence. This strategy I plan on maintaining and using whenever I need to tackle an indirect statement translation. An example of an indirect statement is: Romani dixerunt Hannibalem fortiter pugnare. The head verb is dixerunt The accusative subject is Hannibalem The verb is pugnare Now, the word “that” is part of the translation; however, there is no Latin world for “that” so it is just implied for the translation. The final English translation is: The Romans said that Hannibal fought bravely. Identifying each part of the sentence really helps me to understand indirect statements. This will also help me recognize and translate indirect statements quicker and easier in Latin III. I hope this technique helps you as much as it helps me!

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Current Events in Latin Class

Recently in Latin, we began the unit of deponents. I find these to be a struggle because it is a challenge to remember that despite their passive endings, they are still translated as active verbs. For example, the sentence Nascebar Ostiae, the verb, Nascebar, is translated as I was born, which is not passive. 

Also in Latin, we discussed geographical grammar. This is something I find to be quite easy because you only have to worry about three cases and it only applies to proper nouns (with two exceptions). This makes it easy to identify which words geographical grammar needs to be applied to and, with only three sets of endings to worry about, it is easily applied. 

Some strategies I use to maintain my understanding of Latin and help me to prepare for the future is to make sure I have the endings of nouns and verbs memorized. These charts are very helpful when reviewing the endings:

Nouns:

Verbs:

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Indirect Statements and Geography

Indirect statements are composed of three essential parts: a head verb, an infinitive, and an ACCUSATIVE SUBJECT. When translating from Latin to English, the infinitive is not formed as normal (to ___). Instead the infinitive is treated like a normal verb. In addition, when going from Latin to English, a ‘that’ is added before the accusative subject. There is no word for ‘that’ in Latin, so pay special attention when translating so you do not miss the ‘that’. 

We know that THE GIRLS will go to Athens. Scimus PUELLAS Athenas ituras esse 

Also in this sentence, there is some geographical grammar. When translating geographical words, it is important to note where the subject of the verb is in relation to the place. If the person(s) is going towards the place, the name of the place will be translated with the accusative endings (e.g. to Athens --> Athenas). If the person(s) is coming from the place, the name of the place will be translated with the ablative endings (e.g. from Athens --> Athenis). If the person(s) is in the place, then the name of the place is translated with the locative endings (HINT: locative endings are dative endings! e.g. in Athens --> Athenarum).