Welcome back to Day 19 of the January Latin Challenge on bambasbat.
Today, a short breakdown of the different properties of nouns and verbs, and how to separate them in your head.
Be kind to Latin teachers:
When they ask “What tense is this verb?”, don’t tell them a case!
If you are talking about verbs, you are going to be talking about tenses. Verbs happen at certain points in time, and so they will either be present, one of the past tenses, or one of the future tenses. There are 6 in Latin.
Verbs do not have cases, so don’t answer this question with “nominative” or “ablative”, or your teacher can not be held responsible for their actions.
Equally, nouns do not have tenses - nouns have cases. They are people, places and things, and will be either a subject, object, or show possession, location and relation.
There are 6 cases in Latin - nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative and ablative.
If your teacher asks you “what case is this noun” and you say “past” they are likely to slam their head into a wall. Please don’t damage your Latin teachers.
Full breakdowns
A full explanation of each of the noun cases and verb tenses can be found in the bambasbat archive here. There is a post for each one from the January Latin Challenge. If you haven’t checked them out, go and read them!
Top Tip
Now here’s a ridiculous but simple way to help remember this: I have this stuck on the wall in my classroom, but you could draw it in the front of your notebook or on a folder, or stick it on a post-it somewhere in your house.
Nouns have (suit)cases. Verbs sleep in tents (tense).
It’s absolute nonsense but I have genuinely seen people write it in exams to help them remember, so it must work for them.
Do you have a different way to help you remember? Let me know what it is in the comments!
These are the things you are looking for:
Nouns
what case it is?
what number it is?
(if necessary) what gender it is?
Verbs
You should know the person and number, so 2nd person plural is “you all”,
what tense it is
what voice it is (active or passive)
it’s mood (indicative or subjunctive)
Memorise these lists, and don’t cross them over. Your Latin teacher will be over the moon if you actually answer this question correctly. Please spread the joy to Latin teachers - we don’t ask for much!
Also, to help keep your Latin translations tip top, I want to give you my free guide: 3 Simple Steps to Instantly Improve Your Latin Translations. It will really help you refine your skills.
I hope you have found this post useful! See you tomorrow on bambasbat for Day 20 of the January Latin Challenge!