Direct Statements/Subject-Verb Agreement

Collins pp.16-17

Direct statements are just that!  These are sentences that state a fact or make an assertion.

In Latin, these can be one word such as:  Sum.

This means I am.

Or you can say:

Papa est

There is a pope.

"There is" is an idiomatic way of expressing this in English.  In Latin "Papa est" literally translated would be:  Pope is.  And that would be good enough in Latin.  In English though we'd never express this in such a pidgin way.  We'd add in an article and the idiomatic expression:  'there is'.

I am pretty much just restating what Collins writes.

Collins also states that you could possibly translate "Papa est" as He is the Pope.  You would have to see the context of the statement to figure out exactly the best way to express it in English.  So you can be a little bit loose in translating, though my former Latin teacher thought it best, at first, to be literal.  Once you have some confidence, you can begin to work on finessing things.

The last example of a direct statement is the subject - copulative verb-predicate nominative:

Papa est ministri.

The Pope is a servant (or minister.)

Agreement of Subject and Verb:

Just as in English, subjects and verbs have to agree in number.  If the subject is singular than the verb has to reflect that.  For ex.  The boys is happy is not correct.  Why?  Well, the word 'boys' is plural but the verb 'is' doesn't reflect that.  The boys are happy would be correct.

Here are Collins' examples in Latin to show subject-verb agreement:

Deus est.  God exists.  (Deus = Singular, nominative and 'est' = singular, 3rd person)

Puerī sunt servī.  The boys are servants.  (Peurī = nominative, plural, sunt = 3rd person, plural, servī = predicate nominative, plural.)

Puer est servus.  The boy is a servant.  Puer = nominative singular, est = singular, 3rd person, servus = predicate nominative, singular.

Kinds of Sentences

I can't believe it has been an entire month since I last posted.  My daughter got married Oct. 4th and the weeks before the wedding were spent getting ready and the two weeks since the wedding have been spent recuperating!

But now I am back on track.  I hope to post three times this week.  Let's see if I can get back into the swing of things!

P.  15

Collins gives us a basic grammar lesson here on independent clauses.  Sentences are independent clauses - a subject and a verb.  Sentences often have more that in them but a basic sentence like 'the cat meows' is an independent clause.

Independent clauses/sentences take three forms: 1) statement 2) question 3) command/request.

When you make a statement/question/command you can either make a direct one or an indirect one.  Collins gives examples:

Direct statement:  I visited my brother.

Indirect statement:  He said that he had visited his brother.

Direct question:  Why is the sky blue?

Indirect question:  The child asked why the sky is blue.

Direct command:  Get your feet off the sofa!

Indirect command:  His mother told him to get his feet off the sofa.

Now Collins tells us the 7 basic sentence patterns:

1) Subject/Intransitive verb:  (Eng) I am.    (Latin) Sum

2)Subject/Intransitive verb/adverb:  (Eng.) I am here  (Latin) Sum ibi

3)Subject/Transitive verb/direct object:  (Eng.) I see Peter  (Latin) Video Petrum

4)Sub/Transverb/indirect object/direct obj:  (Eng) I give Peter the book.  (Latin) Dō Petrō librum.

5)S/TV/DO/Predicate accusative:  (Eng.) I make Peter the Pope  (Latin) Faciō Petrum papam.

(Or you can use a predicate adjective I make Peter safe (Latin) Faciō Petrum salvum.)

6) Subject/Copulative verb/Predicate nominative/adj:  (Eng) I am Peter/good  (Latin) Sum Petrus/bonus.

7) Subject/passive verb/by + agent:  (Eng) I am praised by Peter  (Latin) Laudor a Petrō

Unit 2 - Second Declension Masculine Nouns

(See Collins pp. 13-14)

So we've learned the 1st declension (usually feminine) that has these endings for the different cases in singular a, ae, ae, am, ā,  and these endings for plural:  ae, ārum, īs, ās, īs.  We should have these thoroughly memorized by now.

Now we are on to the 2nd declension.  These nouns are either masculine or neuter.  The neuter has slightly different endings, so we'll do the masculine first.

Singular
Nominative - us (sometimes r)
Genitive - ī
Dative - ō
Accusative - um
Ablative - ō

Plural
Nominative - ī
Genitive - ōrum
Dative - īs
Accusative - ōs
Ablative - īs

So if you look at the different endings you can find some patterns.  Notice that the acc. sing. always ends in -m; fem. is -ās and masc. is -ōs.  Notice that both the dative plural and the ablative endings are the same, just as in the 1st declension.  Notice that the genitive plural also ends in -rum but has a different vowel in front of it.  Instead of -ārum now it is -ōrum.  Notice that like the 1st declension the genitive singular is the same as the nominative plural.  Why did the Romans do that?  I don't know.  Maybe they were crazy.  Actually, it is pretty easy to tell a sing. gen. from a nom. pl. because of the context and noun-verb agreement.

Let's decline, as Collins does, one noun ending in -us and one noun ending in -r.

Servus (slave)

Singular
N - Servus
G - Servī
D - Servō
Ac - Servum
Ab - Servō

Plural
N - Servī
G - Servōrum
D - Servīs
Ac - Servōs
Ab - Servīs

Now we'll do . . .

Puer (boy)

Singular
N - Puer
G - Puerī
D - Puerō
Ac - Puerum
Ab - Puerō

Plural
N - Puerī
G - Puerōrum
D - Puerīs
Ac - Puerōs
Ab - Puerīs

So as you can see they decline exactly the same way, except for the nominative singular.

Homework:  memorize this the same way you did the 1st declension, by chanting out loud many times:  us, ī, ō, um, ō . . .  ī, ōrum, īs, ōs, īs.

Collins next introduces us to the verb to be.  Verbs are conjugated and nouns are declined.  Remember that!  You will accidentally confuse them or misspeak and call one the other, when you meant just the opposite.  Or you will do that if you are anything like me!

Present tense of the linking or 'copulative' verb to be:

Singular:
1st person - sum (I am)
2nd person - es (you sing. are)
3rd person - est (he, she, it is)

Plural:
1st person - sumus (we are)
2nd person - estis (y'all are)
3rd person - sunt (they are)

These endings reflect typical endings for present tense active indicative* verb conjugations.  The -m ending on sum is a little weird, thus making it an officially irregular verb, but later on you'll learn that in other tenses -m is a common ending to signify 1st person singular.  But we are getting ahead of ourselves!  Here is the paradigm:

Singular:
1st person - ō (I)
2nd person - s (you)
3rd person - st (he, she, it)

Plural:
1st person - mus (we)
2nd person - tis (y'all)
3rd person - nt (they)

Homework:  memorize sum, es, est, sumus, estis, sunt.  Then if you really want to, memorize the paradigm -ō, -s, -t, -mus, -tis, -nt.  Chant these out loud many times to drill them into your head.

*I will explain what these words mean later.

Finishing up Unit 1

Oh my.  A week has gone by and I have not yet finished this first Unit up.  I am not quite sure how that happened!

Let me do some selected problems in the Exercises on p. 12 and then we'll move on to Unit 2.

The exercises in section I are concerned mostly with using the proper case after a preposition.

1) cōram familiā - in the presence of family (ablative)
2) ad missam - to Mass (accusative)
3) ā missā - from Mass (ablative) (here you can see the difference one little 'd' makes in meaning)
4) cum pāpā - with the pope (ablative)
5) prō ecclēsiā - for or on behalf of the church (ablative)

I'm skipping a few . . .

8.  pāpae ad glōriam; ad glōriam pāpae 

This one is weird because 'papa' which is so masculine takes a feminine ending!

I think both phrases mean the same thing, but in Latin they can be in a different word order.  The first phrase if translated exactly is 'of the pope to glory. ' The second phrase 'to the glory of the pope' makes more sense to us in English, I think.

10.  nātūrā; in nātūrā - here we see the difference between having the ablative form of the verb without any preposition - nātūrā - so this could mean all the of ablative meanings (we just have to pick which one makes sense in the context of the sentence - here we can't tell) from/by/with/in vs. in nātūra which of course comes out and states that we are taking about 'in nature.'

12. in ecclēsiārum terrīs - in the lands of the churches.  here the word for churches is plural genitive and the word for lands is plural ablative.

15.  et vita et aqua - the two 'ets' strung together like that mean 'both life and water.'

16. vita aquaque - with the -que ending though it now means life and water (no idea of 'both')

17.  super terram; super terrā - here again we see the difference between the accusative ending after a preposition and the ablative one.  super terram means over the land while super terrā means about or concerning the land.

20. ecclēsiae prō doctrinīs - on behalf of the doctrines (teachings) of the church.  the word for church is singular genitive and prõ is a preposition meaning on behalf of and takes the ablative - here the word is plural.

II

1.  in behalf of the family of the pope - ok, we need to form two genitives here for the phrases 'of the family' and 'of the pope'

prō familae pāpae

2.  in the presence of the pope - cōram pāpae 

3. without life - sine vitā

4.  at the hour - ad hōram 

5. for the purpose of the glory of the church - I found this one tricky.  To me both glory and church follow 'of' so I thought they should both be in the genitive case.  However, how do we show the case following the preposition then?  Well, I resorted to the answer key which translates the phrase as ad or in gloriam ecclēsiā.  So glory takes the accusative and church takes the genitive here.

Drills on pp. 9 and 10

Unit 1

Drill II

a.  horae - hour - could be genitive (of hour), dative (to/for hour) or nominative plural (hours)

b.  terram - earth - accusative singular

c.  pāpa - pope - nominative singular

d.  ecclesiīs - church - could be plural dative or ablative

e.  vitarum - of lives - plural genitive

f.  aquās - plural accusative - seas

g.  gloria - glory - nominative singular

h.  gratiā - thanks, grace - ablative singular

i.  missīs - masses - either dative or ablative plural

j.  culpae - fault - could be singular genitive or dative or nominative plural

k.  cēnae - dinner - could be singular gentivie or dative or nominative plural

l.  doctrinam - doctrine, teaching - accusative singular

m.  famīliīs - family, household - either dative or ablative plural

n.  naturā - nature - singular ablative

0.  terra - earth - nominative singular

Drill III.

a.  sine pāpā - without the pope

b.  ad gloriam - to glory or ad gloriās - to glories

c.  ā missā or missīs - from the mass or from the masses

d.  dē culpā - concerning the fault or dē culpīs - concerning the faults

e.  ad ecclesiam - to the church or ad ecclesiās - to the churches


I'm a little tired so I plan to check my own work tomorrow morning.

Prepositions - An Overview

(See Collins pp 8 - 10)

Collins introduces us to Latin propositions here.  But first, what is a preposition?  Our old Latin teacher used to say it is anything a squirrel can do to a tree or a bird can do to a cloud.  Meaning a squirrel can run UP a tree, AROUND a tree, maybe INTO the tree (if there is a hole) and then it would be INSIDE the tree.  Same with the cloud imagery - the bird can fly THROUGH the cloud, UNDER  the cloud, ABOVE the cloud.

The official definition of a preposition is:  a word governing and usually preceding a noun or pronoun that expresses a relation to another word or element in the clause. Click here to go to a list of English prepositions.

So what do we mean by 'governing' a noun.  How does a preposition 'govern?'  Well, again in English we don't do a lot of case endings so it is harder to see.  But an example would be:  I stood behind them.  The basic sentence there is:  I stood.  But where did I stand?  Behind (a preposition) them. But why is them not they?  Why the objective ending?  Because it is an object of the proposition.  That's the preposition 'governing' the noun or substantive that follows it.

In Latin we have two cases that follow prepositions.  They are accusative and ablative.

Governing the accusative case - these prepositions often have the idea of motion toward in them.  For example, 'ad' means to, toward, for the purpose of.  It can also mean 'at'

Governing the ablative case - one thing that helps me here is to realize that word ablative begins with the word 'ab' which mean away from or from.  That's the opposite of the accusative which is movement towards something.  So ablative often expresses no motion or motion away from.  However, while that helps a little bit, things get complicated so it is only guideline and not a definitive way of figuring if a preposition is ablative or not.

Apparently, and I didn't know this before, in ecclesiastical Latin they use more prepositions than in classical Latin.  Classical Latin often just puts something in the ablative case and you figure out what is going on from the context.  Church Latin seems to be more specific by sticking in prepositions so you know more exactly the meaning being conveyed.

Ablative of Accompaniment - when using the prepositions 'cum' and 'sine' the noun following (usually a personal noun) will be in the ablative case.

Here are some prepositions in Latin.  Each one is followed by whether it  governs the ablative or accusative case.

ā - (ab, abs - you stick a 'b' on the end if it precedes a noun that begins with a vowel) - prep + abl. = from, away from

ad (prep + acc.) to, toward, for (the purpose of), at

cōram (prep + abl) in the presence of

cum (prep + abl) with

de (prep + abl) from, down from, about, concerning

ē (ex - again you stick an 'x' on the end if it precedes a noun with a vowel) (prep + abl) from, out of

prõ (prep + abl) in front of, in behalf of, instead of, on behalf of

sine (prep + abl) without

There are 2 prepositions that can govern either the accusative or the ablative depending on their meaning.

in (prep + acc) when it means into, onto, against, for (the purpose of)
in (prep + abl) when it means in, on, among, by means of, with

super (prep + acc) when it means above, upon, over
super (prep + abl) when it means about, concerning

The little example that for some reason helps me remember this is:

in urbem amblo  (I walk into the city) (urbem is accusative)
in urbe amblo (I walk in or around the city) (urbe is ablative)

So it is the difference between not being in the city but then walking into it or already being in the city and just walking around it!

So that is an illustration of how changing the case of the govern substantive (noun) can change the idea trying to be conveyed.

Anyway, prepositions become a lot clearer once you start trying to translate them.

Two more words Collins introduces here on p. 10.

et = and - this is its usually meaning.  But it can also act as an intensifying adverb like 'even' or 'too'  If you encounter et . . . . .et (two 'ets' separated by words) that means 'both . . . .and'

-que - this is an enclitic!  What is an enclitic, you might ask?  Well, it has to do with pronunciation.  But here it really means a little ending you tack onto to the end of a word in a sentence to mean 'and'

Here is the Our Father in Latin.

Pater noster, quī es in caelis, sānctificētur nōmen tuum; adveniat rēgnum tuum, fiat voluntās tua, sicut in caelō et in terrā.  Pānem nostrum cotīdiānum* dā  nõbis hodiē, et dimitte nōbīs dēbita nostra, sīcut et nōs dimittimus dēbitōribus nostris, et nē nōs indūcās in tentātiōnem; sed līberā nōs ā malō.  Amen.

Read (and pray!) it to practice pronunciation.  Examine it to see if you see any 1st declension nouns in there in one of their forms or cases.  Do you see an prepositions?

Here is an audio of the Pater Noster.


* Sometimes this is written as quotidianum.

Next up - we'll do some of the exercises at the end of Unit 1

More about First Declension Nouns

(See pp. 7-10 Collins)

Declensions are the patterns that nouns follow, to show what case or job each noun does in a sentence.  Latin is an 'inflected' language which means that unlike English, the role words play in a sentence is determined by endings not word order.  In English we rely heavily on word order, but in Latin you have much more flexibility to move words around (for emphasis or rhyme) because of the morphology (endings).

The first declension is pretty easy to memorize.  First though, a handy dandy way to remember the declensions in a certain order (in Europe I think they have them in a different order and if you study Cambridge Latin, for instance, they don't present the declensions in an easy to memorize way.)  The mnemonic device is to remember the sentence:  No Good Dog Acts Angry.  The first letter of each word in the sentence stands for:

Nominative - subject

Genitive - possessive

Dative - indirect object

Accusative - object

Ablative - object of certain prepositions/adverbial

So we have for the first declension:

Singular
Nominative - a   (life)
Genitive - ae   (of life)
Dative - ae   (to/for life)
Accusative - am   (life)
Ablative - ā   (from/with/in/by life)

Plural
Nominative - ae   (lives)
Genitive - ārum   (of lives)
Dative - īs   (for/to lives)
Accusative - ās   (lives)
Ablative - īs   (from/with/in/by lives)

So to memorize this you should chant : a, ae, ae, am, aaahhh!  Ae, ārum, īs, ās, īs.  I put that aaahhh in there to emphasize that it is a long a.  It helps to clap as you chant and get things into a little rhythm.  Don't feel dumb!  It really makes it easier to remember.

Collins stresses that it is important to associate each form of the noun with the meaning indicated in the parenthesis.

Most of the words in the first declension are considered feminine.  However there are some exceptions to this rule.  Our Latin teacher (and I am not sure where she got this) used another mnemonic device for remembering some common exceptions:  P.A.I.N.  These words are a pain because they are exceptions!  They are pirata, agricola, incola, nauta.  Pirata = pirate, agricola = farmer, incola = inhabitant, and nauta = sailor.  These words follow the 1st declension pattern but are masculine.

Another important thing to know is that you should always note the nominative and the genitive of every noun.  The genitive actually tells you what declension it belongs to.

And finally, when talking about nouns, we need to know that in Latin there are no words like a, an, or the.  Latin just expects you to figure that out yourself.  So when you translate from Latin to English, you, the translator get to decided which article you want to use.

Here are some 1st Declension nouns:

vita, vitae = life
aqua, aquae  = water
cēna, cēnae = dinner
culpa, culpae = fault
doctrīna, doctrīnae = doctrine
ecclesia, ecclesia = church
famīla, famīlia = family or household
glōria, glōriae = glory


grātia, grātiae = grace, thanks
hōra, horae = hour
missa, missae = Mass
nātūra, nātūrae = nature
pāpa, pāpae (this one is masculine!) = pope
terra, terrae = earth, land
vīta, vītae - life


Next time we'll talk about some prepositions.

Nouns: An Overview

(see pages 4-7 in Collins)

Now we start to get into the good stuff.  One thing I found really rewarding about studying Latin is that I finally began to understand grammar and why it is so important.  Grammar is the structure of a language.  You need it, as well as vocabulary, in order to produce nuanced expression in words.  I still need to learn or relearn a lot of my grammar.

We have the eight basic parts of speech necessary to convey thought. (Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections)  Why eight?  That's just how many we turned out to need!  Nouns are pretty essential.  They are words that indicate a person. place or thing, act, or quality.  Nouns have certain characteristics.  These characteristics are:

1) Number - you can have one thing or you can more than one.  Singular or plural.

2) Case - in English we still have a little bit of a case ending system left over from our earlier inflected language heritage.  So we say 'they' for the subject and 'them' to indicate direct object.  That shows case.  Case really mean the job the noun is performing in the sentence.   The case is shown by the ending stuck on the end of the noun.  So nouns have a stem that doesn't change and then endings you plug on to them to show their case (job).

The noun can be the subject of the sentence - in Latin this is the nominative case.

The noun can be the object of the sentence - in Latin this is called the accusative (I think of someone hurling an accusation at someone.  That someone is receiving that accusation - so it is receiving the action of the verb accusation).  Some prepositions (usually ones that connote movement) take the accusative form.

The noun can be a possessive noun - called genitive in Latin - this is when we know to whom something belongs, as in the boy's sword.  For clarity's sake it is best to translate this always as 'of something.'  So we would say the sword of the boy.  This sounds awkward in English sometimes but it makes things much clearer when translating.

There are two other cases.  They are the indirect object (I gave the girl the gift) which in Latin is called the dative case.  To figure out if something is an indirect object see if you can insert 'to' or 'for' into the sentence.  I gave the gift to the girl.  Gift is the direct object - receiving the action; girl is the indirect object.

And the ablative case which is the object of certain prepositions and certain adverbial phrases. Ablative is probably the most complicated case for us to learn, but once you get used to it, it is a very handy case indeed!

Then there are two minor cases - vocative which in English is called direct address.  If I am talking directly to a guy named Marcus and I say his name, I say it in the vocative case - Marci.  That means I'm talking to you, Marci, and not some 3rd person Marcus guy.

Locative - I have never gotten a handle on the locative.  I just know that it makes a difference for the names of certain cities or places and for other cities or places it seems that the case is spelled exactly the same as the nominative so it doesn't matter.  It's weird.  Hopefully, I'll understand this time around.

Declining a noun.  Nouns have patterns that show what their case endings are.  There are five patterns and for organization's sake, they are called simply 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th declension.   These patterns are called declensions and when you are figuring out what the right ending is to show the noun's case - that is called declining a noun.

Here is the first declension noun pattern:

Singular
Nominative        a
Genitive             ae
Dative                ae
Accusative         am
Ablative             ã

Plural
Nominative        ae
Genitive             ārum
Dative                īs
Accusative         ãs
Ablative             īs

3)  Gender.  Before we go on to talk about this first declension, let me back up and talk about another characteristic of nouns that I haven't addressed yet.  Along with number and case (the declension) there is also gender to be considered.  Now in English we don't really emphasize gender.  Sometimes we call ships or cars 'she,' for instance, but that is an exception.  If we know something is male or female then we call it such, but usually objects or nouns are gender neutral.  Even the ones that used to have different endings like 'actor' and 'actress' or going by the wayside.  Now we tend to say 'actors' for both; we say waiter or wait person instead of waitress, etc.  So English really only has a little bit of gender that is incorporated into the language.  In Latin all nouns have a gender and it may or may not make sense why something is considered masculine, feminine or neuter.  This is something that can be difficult to grasp for English speakers.  We just have to memorize what gender each noun is.  However, the more you study and translate, the more you remember and after a while it really does get much easier.

More on First Declension nouns next time.

Unit 1 - d. Syllabication

For some reason syllabication really trips me up.  I mispronounce things wildly at times!  I need to hear a lot of Latin to really get this.  But this time I am going to go through and write, in my own words, how syllabication works in Latin.

First of all the general rule is that in a two syllable word the penult or second to last syllable gets the accent.  So:  cē/na (pronounced chay/nah - means dinner)

Three syllable words are trickier so I will get to them later.

First, how do you know what makes a syllable in Latin?  Here are some rules:

A Latin word has as many syllables as it has vowels (or diphthongs)

1) We divide after an open vowel (those vowels not followed by a consonant) as in the word pi/us

2) Or those vowels followed by a single consonant as in the word vi/ta or ho/ra

3)  When two consonants are together, we divide after the first consonant as in the words mis/sa and san/ctus

Back to accents.  The length of a syllable (whether it has a long or short vowel sound in it) determines where the accent is in a word of 3 or more syllables.

A syllable is long if it contains a long vowel or a diphthong.

A syllable can also be long in terms of accent if the short vowel in it is followed by 2+ consonants or double consonants.  However, you still pronounce the vowel with its short sound.  So the word for Mass in Latin is missa.  Missa is a world that has a short i sound followed by a double consonant.  That means that the accent is on the penult syllable but the i sound is still short.  Missa not mīssa.

Clear as mud?  It gets worse.

The penult syllable is the boss of how the accent falls on the word.  If you have a 3 or more syllable word and the penult is long, then you put the accent there as in doc/trI/na or an/cI/la.

But if that penult is short, then the accent moves to the antepenult (or the 3rd from last syllable) as in the word angelus.  Say angelus like you would in the sentence:  It is time to pray the Angelus.

You just put the accent on the first syllable.  If you put it on the penult it would have sounded like an/GEL/us.

I am not going to get into the more complicated things Collins says about mute consonants and liquid ones, etc.

Note:  Traditional Latin missals and breviaries don't use the macron but use accent signs instead.

One last rule:

Consonant sequences of:  nf, ns, nx, nct and often gn cause a preceding vowel to lengthen. Examples:  nf = īnferus

ns = cōnsecrō

nx = conjūnx

nct = sānctus

gn = dīgnus (but not always; in magnus the a is short)

Here is a link to Ecclesiastical pronunciation and if you scroll down they spell out exactly how to pronounce the sign of the cross (Signum Crucis) and the Doxology.

Here is another site that lets you hear the pronunciation of the prayers of the rosary at either a slow or fast speed.  A nice resource!

For me personally, reading the syllabication rules doesn't really help.  Listening to proper pronunciation and then trying to replicate, does.

Unit 1 - Pronunciation of Ecclesiastical Latin

Last year I really switched to classical pronunciation because we were involved in the certamen competition.  Really, in the world of Latin studies classical pronunciation is the way to go.  The only place you are going to hear ecclesiastical is in the Church liturgy and music.  So I do think it is best to be able to switch back and forth between the pronunciations.

Anyway, I am just going to pretty much summarized what the text says just to get it all firmly into my own head

• alphabet is same as English except no k and no w
• vowels are pronounced as follows:
• long ā - father (grātia), short a - carouse (aqua)
• long ē - they (cēna),  short e - get (terra)
• long ī - machine (vīta),  short i - fit (missa)
• long ō - no (glōria), short o - soft (dominus)
• long ū - tuba (Jūdaea), short u - put (culpa)

N.B.  When you are singing Latin though the short vowels tend to sound more like long vowels

No silent vowels in Latin

Y is only a vowel (short i sound) in words from Greek as in mysterium, hymnus

A vowel followed by another vowel or separated by h is usually short as in scīre but sciat, nihil

Dipthongs - two vowels together that make one sound

• ae, like ē - aeternus, saeculum (in classical this sounds like a long i as in aisle)
• au, like ou as in out - aurum, laudō
• oe, like ē:  coepi
• ui like -wi- dwindle:  huic, cui

Consonants (I am only noting the ones that are different from English)

• b as in English but more like p before s or t
• c is like k except before e, i, ae, oe then like ch (caelum) ( in class. pron. always k)
• g as in gut, except before e, i, or y then like j in jut (angelus) (in class. always hard)
• h as in hat (not as in honor)
• j is really the letter i as a consonant - sounds like a y (Jesus)
• qu - just like in English qw
• r should be slightly trilled
• s always unvoiced (like set not as in rise)
• z is like dz as in adze (baptizo)

Notes:

• gn sounds like ny in canyon
• sc followed by e or i makes the sh sound (scelus) (not in classical)
• U sounds like w in words with qu, gu and often su - sanguis, suāvis (like our suave)
• x and z count as 2 consonants (important for syllabication?) x = ks, z - dz
• ti followed by vowel is pronounced tsi (except when s, t, or x precedes)
• Ph = f, ch = k, th = t
• double consonants are both pronounced (as in heal leg or something like that!)
• No silent consonants
• v is pronounced like v in English (in classical pronounced as w)

Whew!  Since the next topic, syllabication, always flummoxes me, I'll work on that next time.

Purpose of this Blog

I am a chronic beginner in learning Latin.  I came to study it late in life along with my children as we homeschooled.  Except we never stuck with it very long because it seemed so daunting that we were easily discouraged.  But for some reason I remained dogged about learning it, even though it frightened me so.  I wound up taking classes with my teenagers as we homeschooled high school.  By that time though, I was in my late 40's and felt like my brain just didn't retain things like it used to when I was younger.  I have to study harder and I forget thing more easily.  But I keep trying!  So here is my next attempt.  I plan to work through this textbook, A Primer of Ecclesiastical Latin by John F. Collins.  I invite anyone to join me, if they like.  I plan to be gentle but steady in my progress through the book.  I probably won't start into this project for real until September of 2014.

I don't even attend a Latin mass.  I counted up all the times I have been to a Latin Mass, either Novus Ordo or Tridentine, and I think I came up with eight times.  I am very attached to my own parish and it does not offer a Latin Mass.  As a family though, we tend to go to what is billed as the 'traditional choir' Mass at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday mornings.  That choir tends to include some Latin hymns or prayers, so we do get a little exposure to Latin that way.

Over the years, I have dabbled in learning German (high school),  French (high school and then six weeks spent in France after graduation) and Italian (after college I took some adult education courses and then traveled to Italy a couple of times).  Lately, I have been dabbling in Spanish.  But in none of these languages have I ever become proficient or fluent.  Alas.

How I hope to use this blog:

1) This blog will contain my own notes on each lesson
2)  Helpful links that flesh out the lessons
3)  Some of the tougher items (at least for me) from the exercises for each lesson
4)  If anyone joins me on this quest and has questions they post in the comments, I might turn that discussion into an actual post in order to clarify or restate things.
5)  For me, I know that in order to retain all this stuff, I will need to work on it for short intensive sessions several times a week.  I can't just learn Latin once a week.  My brain simply won't remember things from one week to the next.  So I hope, ideally, to post at least 3 times a week.
6)  Also, if anyone joins me, I would try to move through the book steadily but gently over the course of an academic year.  That's the general idea.  But if it turns out we need to slow down, that's fine too.  I'd want to work as a supportive group of likeminded students.

I end this first post with this: