THE FARMER’S JOURNAL
You’ll have noticed by now that a lot of Latin words crop up in different forms. In the passage from Cato with had animum and animo, bonum and bonae, and habeto and habeas.
This is because Latin is an inflected language. Words change their endings according to how they are used in a sentence. A single noun will tell you whether it is singular or plural, whether it is masculine or feminine or neuter, and what role it plays in the story of the sentence. Is it the subject, the object, or something else? A single verb will carry information about whether the event is taking place in the past, present or future, whether it is real or merely imagined, whether it is a statement or an order, and much more.
If you haven’t already delved into Tabella’s grammar notes, now would be a great time to start. You’ve explored enough Latin to have an idea of how the language works, and learning some grammar will clear up any confusion that lingers around the edges. From now on I will start to give nouns and adjectives as they appear in the dictionary. I will sometimes tell you whether the form you see in a passage is nominative, genitive, and so forth. But you will soon be able to discard the training wheels and speed off on your own. Click here to learn more about the basics, or on the general grammar link for a good overview of the various topics.
We’ll wrap up with a short film on Cato.