Latin help, anyone good at it?

[Tim]

"Brevis brevis breve, brevis brevis breve, brevem brevem breve, brevis brevis brevis, brevi brevi brevi, breve breve breve;
Breves breves brevia, breves breves brevia, breves breves brevia, brevium brevium brevium, brevibus brevibus brevibus, brevibus brevibus brevibus". And breathe.

Reminds me of the grammarian's haiku:

Haiku, you ku, he
she or it kus, we ku, you
ku, they ku, thang ku.

[Greenbank]

It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs.

[Oxford University Press, Edpress News]

[HTFB]

Various useful sites can be found by googling "Latin word list".


Abscondo, -ere can be to hide something or just to hide (oneself) intransitively. Delitisco, -iscere is always to hide oneself, though it's not a word I knew before googling¹. If you're going to conceal yourself with celo, -are, you have to do it reflexively.

So: Rex abscondit, rex delitiscit, or rex se celat.



------
1 ante gogolandum

[1gear]

Various useful sites can be found by googling "Latin word list".


Abscondo, -ere can be to hide something or just to hide (oneself) intransitively. Delitisco, -iscere is always to hide oneself. If you're going to conceal yourself with celo, -are, you have to do it reflexively.

So: Rex abscondit, rex delitiscit, or rex se celat.

Thank you very much

[redshift]

You could really do with a half-decent text book.  Mine was "The approach to Latin" but it's probably long out of print these days. 

In the old way of learning Latin, one learned each noun by its declension, its nominative singular and its genitive singular, as per the dictionary.  For each declension one noun was picked as the example, and all others of the same declension follow it.  Thus:

Bellum -i (n) war

Singular         Plural
Bellum           Bella                  Nominative (subject of verb)
Bellum           Bella                  Vocative (subject of address - 'Oh war...!')
Bellum           Bella                  Accusative (object of verb)
Belli               Bellorum            Genitive (possesive - 'of war')
Bello              Bellis                 Dative (indirect object - usually 'to' or 'for' something)
Bello              Bellis                 Ablative  (implying distance, perhaps of time, usually 'from' or 'out of')

As HTFB says, the adjective must agree with the noun in number, case and gender.  A textbook (as opposed to a dictionary) will have all the tables in it, showing all the declensions and verb conjugations.

[hellymedic]

Like Alan and orienteer, I've forgotten most of it. More than 41 years ago in my case. 

For 'audax miles' Teethgrinder's your man.... 

Never mind Teethgrinder, isn't Liz all posh and knowing of Latin an' stuff?

My scant Latin finished a mere 37 years ago and is mostly forgotten.
Posh Liz has a lickle bruvver called Phil and he used to sign himself as the forum Latin geek so he might be your man. He's got a job in Real Life now and might be busy though.

[Phil]

Bah, I've missed the fun

[drossall]

Various useful sites can be found by googling "Latin word list".

Or Latin declensions - Wikipedia looks good.

As with others, I fear that 35 years of rust may have affected my memory of Caecilius and friends.

[clarion]

I didn't have the Latin for the Judgin' </Peter Cook>

[gonzo]

Nothing to contribute, other than:

No your right, her teacher was wrong!! So it appears

GAHHHHH!!!!

[1gear]

Nothing to contribute, other than:

No your right, her teacher was wrong!! So it appears

GAHHHHH!!!!

Get over it, understand, accept or dont read my posts or bother replying.
Im doing English Language would you beleive.
Much love
xxxx

[gordon taylor]

Did you know that it is impossible to do sums using Roman numerals?
IMHO, that's why their empire collapsed.

Hope that helps.

[Wowbagger]

Did you know that it is impossible to do sums using Roman numerals?
IMHO, that's why their empire collapsed.

Hope that helps.

Since this thread appears to have served its purpose, I'll take it right off topic and suggest (cos I read it in a really well-argued book) that the Roman Empire collapsed because they couldn't supply enough energy to keep it going. All their energy was supplied in the form of food for humans or beasts of burdens.

The book was "The Upside of Down" by Thomas Homer-Dixon and it was so good I managed to finish it. I've not managed that with a book for quite a long time.

[HTFB]

Did you know that it is impossible to do sums using Roman numerals?
IMHO, that's why their empire collapsed.

Hope that helps.

Roman numerals aren't good for doing mental arithmetic. They're optimised for using with an abacus. Which is quicker and more accurate than mental or paper-and-pencil arithmetic. Especially at the state of the art in Roman times for arithmetic techniques. (when there were other competing notations anyway, like the Greek decimal letter system or the Babylonian base 60).

Much of what we think of as elementary arithmetic is surprisingly modern, thirteenth or fourteenth century innovation.  Did you know that English primary schools teach subtraction wrong?

[border-rider]

Get over it, understand, accept or dont read my posts or bother replying.

'Condemn a Little More, Understand a Little Less'

It's a Tory philosophy.

[HTFB]

'Condemn a Little More, Understand a Little Less'

It's a Tory philosophy.

One which Henry VIII embraced.

[1gear]

Get over it, understand, accept or dont read my posts or bother replying.

'Condemn a Little More, Understand a Little Less'

It's a Tory philosophy.

Eh?

[Greenbank]

Im

I'm

[1gear]

Im

I'm

  well done

[Euan Uzami]

Does anyone actually speak latin any more?
as in, actually uses it to converse.

And also, without wanting to suggest that welsh isn't necessary, is there anyone that only speaks welsh? as in, doesn't speak english as well.

Little known fact: the rarest language in the world is some south american one, and it is only spoken by two people in the entire world. Unfortunately though, however, they fell out with each other a long time ago, so it never gets spoken.

[Wowbagger]

Does anyone actually speak latin any more?
as in, actually uses it to converse.

And also, without wanting to suggest that welsh isn't necessary, is there anyone that only speaks welsh? as in, doesn't speak english as well.

Little known fact: the rarest language in the world is some south american one, and it is only spoken by two people in the entire world. Unfortunately though, however, they fell out with each other a long time ago, so it never gets spoken.

Probably.

My brother went to Cardiff Uni and a girl he knew spoke no English until she was taught at secondary school. That was a fair while ago though: my brother was 64 last week.

[drossall]

Caesar adsum iam forte
Brutus aderat
Caesar sic in omnibus
Brutus in is at

As my dad used to say.

[Jaded]

There are a couple of latin experts over on CycleChat... oh...

And i take it you know the full story about CC then

cc?

Carbon Copy? 

[hellymedic]

Sorry, 1gear, I am not sure whether English is your first language or not as there are 11 errors in your opening post alone. You have not come across as someone with a firm grasp of English, mainly spelling. I am also sorry that I have just joined those who have pointed out some of your errors.

I hope your girlfriend is enjoying studying Latin.

As far as the Latin discussion goes, I am fascinated. Learning Slovak I can see the similarities with Latin as both use grammatical cases, not entirely the same ones though, and so the declinations are similar; far more than English is to either language.

The word is declensions.
Declination governs angles, often of objects in the sky.

Every post commenting on spelling and grammar usually contains an error...

 

[Bledlow]

Every post commenting on spelling and grammar usually contains an error...

 

QED.