I was going through my bookshelf last night, looking for a new book to read (I ended up reading Naruto fanfiction on my tablet — don’t judge me!!!), and I discovered:
Well, technically mine is the 6th edition, but it’s basically the same thing. Right? Right???
This has inspired me to start a series of posts about Latin — aka learning how to write/read the Romans’ unnecessarily complicated language. And we’re talking unnecessary. I took Latin for two years in university, and despite forgetting pretty much everything I learned, I still remember that it was a bloody difficult subject. Also, I appear to have turned British.
So without further ado, I present to you:
Learn Latin 101 — Verb Basics
So in Latin, you have to conjugate verbs. This is true for most languages. Today we’re doing basic present tense. Observe:
Singular Plural
1st person -o -mus
2nd person -s -tis
3rd person -t -nt
Right. Those were verb endings, by the way. If you walk around saying “o! t! mus!”, people will think you’re crazy.
So, let’s apply this to a verb. The verb “to love” is amare (pronounced ah-mah-ray). First, we chop off the ending (the “re”). That leaves us with “ama”. Now, we stick on the conjugated endings. This gives us:
amo = I love (not ama-o, because that sounds stupid)
amas = You love
amat = He/she loves
amamus = We love
amatis = They love
amant = You (plural) love
Confused yet? Don’t be! This is literally the easiest part of Latin! Now, I feel the best way to learn a new language is to use it in my daily speech. Therefore, whenever you speak from now on and mention loving something, I suggest you use the Latin word instead. Examples:
Oh my god! Those shoes are adorable! Amo!
Amas me, dontcha? DONTCHA??!
Amatis cheese. They are fools.
Etcetera. In our next Learn Latin 101 post, we will learn why 90% of what I just taught you is horribly incorrect. (Spoiler alert: Latin verbs go at the end of a sentence, not the beginning).
For teh lulz:
Michelle Proulx - Author 
Funny, I was just thinking yesterday that learning Latin is one of the things I want to do before I die, if only so I can sprinkle Latin maxims into my conversation and writings. I think what makes Latin so difficult to learn (for English speakers anyway) is that it’s an inflected language. But that also makes it beautifully succinct, because it doesn’t need all those little words that indicate what is acting on what. Example: “Minima maxima sunt” has more punch than “The smallest things are most important.”
Latin truly is a beautiful language. Hence why every college/business worth their salt has a Latin motto, I guess 🙂 Although I’m sure there are other, better reasons for that, lol.
Latin is just like French (my native language)! ”J’aime, tu aimes, il aime, nous aimons, vous aimez, ils aiment.” Except our verbs come at the beginning of the sentence. ”J’aime beaucoup le fromage./I like cheese a lot.”. I was quite disappointed when my school took out it’s Latin courses, I really wanted to learn it. Well, I’ll have to settle for Spanish – which is just as interesting, except for the fact that Latin is a dead language that people used two thousand years ago. But it’ll be lots of fun!
I took Spanish! It was awesome. Then they cancelled all Spanish classes because there wasn’t enough interest. That wasn’t as awesome.
I can relate. 😦
I’ve always wanted to learn Latin. Thanks for the lesson. It’s so helpful to learn Latin to better understand other languages, including English.
Went to Medical school and was overwhelmed with the long list of Latin names so I switched to Optometry school which had a much shorter list. Try using Poplateil fossa in a sentence.
Hahaha there’s an awesome reason to switch schools if I’ve ever heard one.