Latin Grammar Tips

Latin is closer to English than a lot of languages, like Swahili or Mandarin. That's because Latin and English are both in the same language family -- called Indo-European. Sharing a language family doesn't necessarily make it easy for an English speaker to learn Latin, the ancient language of the Romans. Since the Romance languages (e.g., French and Spanish) evolved from Latin, familiarity with them helps.

Comparisons Between English and Latin:

In Latin, it is not necessary to use articles (the, an, a), but it is necessary for adjectives to agree with the nouns they describe. The opposite is true in English: we use articles (the, an, a) and don't put endings on our adjectives (red book or red books -- red is the same).

Word order is crucial for English, but not so much in Latin. Latin has more noun cases than English, where cases are visible mostly on pronouns (he, his, him), and nouns in Latin also have gender, which English lacks. The alphabet is almost the same, but there are differences worth noting:

• Agreement
• Case
• Word Order
• Gender
• Alphabet
• Articles

Latin Pronouns:

Intensive pronouns translate into English with "-self" as in I myself. Demonstrative pronouns are "this" and "that," including a contemptuous form. Personal pronouns are the ones we usually think of as pronouns, the I, you, he, she, it, etc.

• Latin Intensive Pronouns
• Latin Personal Pronouns
• Latin Demonstrative Pronouns

Interjections:

Interjections are words thrown in, either alone or in a sentence, but without a grammatical connection. (Oh! Yikes!) English and Latin both have interjections.

• Latin Interjections

Prepositions:

Prepositions tend to specify relationships or directions.

• Latin Prepositions

Latin Verbs:

Learning the paradigms of the Latin verbs is one of the most time-consuming parts of learning the language.

Verbs in Latin are conjugated. There are 4 basic conjugations plus variations. Verbs have moods, like the subjunctive, and tenses, which relate to the time of the action.

• Semi-Deponent Verbs
• Frequentative Verbs
• Sequence of Tenses
• Deponent Verbs
• Internal Vowels in Verbs
• Verb Endings
• Infinitives
• Person and Number
• Prepositions in Latin Verbs
• Imperfect Tense
• Impersonal Verbs

• Moods of Latin Verbs
• Tenses of Latin Verbs
• Sequence of Tenses
• Supine

• 1st Conjugation
• 2nd Conjugation
• 3rd Conjugation
• 4th Conjugation
• Irregular Verbs

Conjunctions:

Conjunctions are often small words whose job is to join items together (and, but, or, nor, neither...nor, either...or, not only...but also)

• Conjunctions

Latin Nouns:

Conjugations go with verbs. Declensions go with nouns.

There are 5 declensions in Latin, which means 5 sets of endings to become familiar with. So much is fairly straightforward. What is most confusing to us is the use of cases, since English has very limited cases mostly visible on our pronouns.

• Ablatives
• Some Latin Noun Suffixes
• Vocatives
• 1st Declension
• 2nd Declension
• 3rd Declension
• 4th Declension
• 5th Declension
• Neuter Plural

Adjectives:

Latin adjectives have to agree with the nouns the modify. As such they, too, are declined.

• Agreement of Masculine 1st Declension Nouns and Adjectives
• Color Adjectives
• Comparatives

Find out more about the Proto-Indo-European Languages, the Indo-European Languages, and Vulgar Latin - Romance Languages.