Getting to Grips with the Genitive

January Latin Challenge: Day 6 of 31

Welcome back to bambasbat for our January Latin Challenge! Before we start, I want to give you my one page free guide to all the noun endings. It will really help you to get familiar with all the cases for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd declensions. Find it here, or sign up with your email to get it sent straight to you.

Today we are getting to grips with the genitive case in Latin - it sounds tricky, but once you’ve got the hang of it it feels so simple! To start with we will look at how the genitive works in English, and then move onto looking at it in Latin.

The Genitive Case

A noun in the genitive is used to show possession.

In English we show this in two ways, either using of or using ’s

• the book of the girl

• the girl’s book 

Now I always get asked - but which word would be in the genitive case? That’s easier than it seems - it’s whoever or whatever is the figurative “owner”. Whoever has possession of or is claiming some relationship to the object! For my examples above, its the girl both times. She is the owner of the book, so she is in the genitive case.

Alright, the English makes sense. What about Latin?

Now in Latin, the theory behind who is genitive is the same. It is whoever or whatever is grammatically in possession of the noun in question. But Latin, more helpfully than English, changes the noun ending to show us which word it is that is the owner. 

Here are the noun endings for the genitive case:

Remember in Latin we have “declensions”, which are just groups of nouns that change in the same way. I am only showing you the genitive endings. Don’t forget that for the whole table of cases, you can download the free cheat sheet from here. 

As you can see, the endings are a bit unusual.

• 1st declension genitive singular is the same as the 1st declension nominative plural, so you need to be aware of that.

• Masculine 2nd declension singular - its the same as the 2nd nominative plural.

• The 3rd declension genitive singular ending is unique for that declension, but could be mistaken for the 1st and 2nd dative or ablative plurals, so be careful there!

However, the genitive plurals are nice and easy to spot generally, you just have to look for the -arum or -orum ending for the 1st and 2nd, and the -um for the 3rd declension. Its really important you know what the nominative singular for nouns is, so you can tell which declension they are in.

Top tip:

In dictionaries, you will see the nominative singular form, followed by the genitive singular. This is to help you figure out which declension nouns are in, and shows you if the stem changes at all.

Now let’s try translating some Latin sentences! 

The vocab below is split into nouns and verbs for ease, nouns in the nominative singular with the genitive endings to help you, and the genitive endings table is at the bottom.

1. servus regis cenam parat. 

2. ancillae dominorum rident.

3. actores imperatoris saltant.

Only keep reading when you are ready for the translations below.

1. The genitive is regis - of the king. The sentence says the slave of the king/the king’s slave prepares the dinner. Remember, you can translate the genitive using of or ’s.

2. The genitive here is dominorum, and it’s plural - of the masters. The sentence means: The slave girls of the masters laugh.

3. The genitive here is imperatoris - a 3rd declension singular noun. It translates as of the general, or (if you are sure that the person being discussed was an emperor) you can translate it as of the emperor. The sentence means the general’s actors dance.

That’s the genitive case

Let me know whether this helped, or if you have any questions I can help you with in the comments. Don’t forget to download the free one page cheat sheet for nouns, you’ll find it very useful for learning the endings of the most common noun declensions. 

Thanks for reading! See you tomorrow for bambasbat’s January Latin Challenge: Day 7!