Today is a catch-up day to review any lesson(s) you missed this past week, and also to do whatever kind of practice you think is most fun/useful for you. You will find the list of lessons below, plus a random cat. Each cat is linked to its lesson, so you can use the cats for a random review if you want; each time you reload this post page you'll see a cat at random. Dictation is also a great review option; you can use the audio at the bottom of each lesson to practice writing down the Latin as you listen.
Also, since we are now well underway and school is starting up again, I'll be shifting now to a Monday-Friday schedule for the lessons, catch-up day on Saturday, and Sunday off.
I hope this pace has been working for people! I promised the person who got me started on this project that the lessons would take just 10-15 minutes per day, and the way I've been measuring that is by how long it would take to read each lesson out loud (maybe 8-10 minutes?) plus time to practice the Latin sentences. If you have suggestions about how I can make the material more do-able, just let me know.
So, here are the lessons from this week, plus the random cat below; you can see the complete list of lessons on its own page.
The focus for today's lesson is some new masculine adjectives! And remember, I'm now marking the pronunciation help somewhat differently, as explained in yesterday's lesson about word stress. So, if you didn't get a chance to look at that yesterday, take a look now before you go on to today's sayings.
1. Avarus semper est pauper.
(A) greedy (man) is always poor.
a-VAR-us semper est pauper
The adjective avarus, "greedy," gives us English "avarice."
You've seen the adverb semper, "always," before: Semel malus, semper malus.
You haven't had the adjective pauper, "poor," yet, but you have had a noun formed from this word: paupertas, "poverty," as in Paupertas ingeniosa. From the Latin word we get English "pauper" and also "poor."
The idea is that because the greedy man is never satisfied, he is no better off than a poor man.
2. Nullus dies omnino malus.
No day (is) entirely bad.
nullus dies om-NI-no malus
The adjective nullus, "none," is a contraction: ne-ullus, "not any."
The noun dies, "day," gives us English "diurnal" (and thus also "journal"), plus "diary."
The adverb omnino, "entirely, completely" is from the adjective omnis, "all, every," which you have seen before: Omnis est misera servitus.
You've also seen the adjective malus, "bad," before: Semel malus, semper malus.
3. Hodie nullus, cras maximus.
Today (he's a) nobody, tomorrow (the) greatest.
HO-die nullus, cras MAX-imus
The adverb hodie, "today," is a contraction: hoc-die, "on this day," i.e. today.
The adverb cras, "tomorrow" gives us English "procrastination."
The adjective maximus, "greatest" gives us English "maximum" (which is the neuter form of the Latin adjective; you'll be learning about neuter nouns and adjectives next week!)
This Latin saying, adapted from a Greek saying, was made famous by Erasmus, who included it in his Adagia. It applies to anyone who experiences extraordinary good luck, changing him from a nobody into a celebrity overnight.
4. Vir quidem unus, nullus est.
One man indeed is none.
vir quidem unus nullus est
The noun vir, "man" (as opposed to woman), is actually the origin of English "virtue." Latin virtus originally meant "manliness, strength, bravery," but in Christian culture it took on a less gendered, more general meaning as in English "virtue." You can see the manly sense of vir in English "virile."
The word quidem is usually translated as "indeed" in English, but it really doesn't have an actual meaning of its own; instead, it is more like a verbal punctuation mark the provides emphasis, something like an exclamatino mark. Because the word doesn't actually mean anything on its own, it never comes first in a clause. Instead, it is a "postpositive," meaning that it is positioned after (post) the first word in the clause. I'll be translating quidem as indeed, but I hope you will start to appreciate this word for the role it plays in Latin statements; it's very useful, and we don't really have anything like Latin postpositives in English.
The number unus, "one," is related to English "one," and you can see a handy chart of Indo-European number words at Wikipedia. From the Latin root we get English "unity," "unify," etc.
The idea is that no man can succeed on his own; a man by himself might as well be nobody at all. The saying also appears in this form: Unus vir, nullus vir, "One man, no man."
5. Illiteratus rex est asinus coronatus.
(An) ignorant king is (a) donkey wearing a crown.
Illite-RA-tus rex est A-sinus coro-NA-tus
The adjective illiteratus is a compound: in-literatus, "not lettered, uneducated." This is another kind of Latin participle: unlike the active participles you learned about earlier this week, this is a passive participle, like some other adjectives you've seen previously: vocatus, "called," natus, "born (i.e. birthed)," immoderata, "unlimited" are just a few of the passive participles you've seen so far, and you'll be learning more about those participles later on.
You've seen rex, "king," before: Rex est lex, and Rex est lex vivens.
The noun asinus, "donkey," gives us English "asinine."
Like illiteratus, the adjective coronatus, "crowned," is a passive participle, and it creates a nice rhyming sound effect in this saying. From this Latin root, we get English "corona" and also "crown."
The word order is called chiasmus, "crisscross," because it goes adj-noun || noun-adj. You can find out more about chiasmus at Wikipedia if you are curious (it is one of my favorite word order tricks in Latin).
Remember how I mentioned earlier that there are rules for Latin stress? I hope that by reading out loud for the past few weeks you will have guessed, consciously or subconsciously, what some of those rules are. Today, I will go ahead and explain the rules, and you can see if they match with what you were thinking:
1. Words that are one syllable. When a word is one syllable long, there is no dilemma: you stress that syllable. Here are some examples: REX EST LEX. NUNC NOX, MOX LUX.
2. Words that are two syllables. When a word is two syllables long, you always stress the first syllable. Here are some examples: NO-men O-men. HO-mo BUL-la.
3. Words that are three (or more) syllables. This is where things get tricky, because it all depends on the next-to-last syllable, which is called the "penultimate" syllable (paene-ultimum, almost-last).
3a. If the penultimate syllable is long, then it gets stressed. There are 3 ways that a syllable can be long:
3a1. If the vowel in that syllable is followed by two or more consonants, the syllable is long. Here are some examples (notice that the consonants are not in the same syllable; what matters is that there are two consonants following the vowel): ju-VEN-tus ... pau-PER-tas ... ae-TER-na ... ma-GIS-ter
3a1. If the vowel in that syllable is a diphthong (i.e. two vowels), the syllable is long. Here is an example: the-SAU-rus
3a2. If the vowel in that syllable is long, the syllable is long. Here are some examples (you might hold these vowel sounds a bit longer because they are indeed long vowels): vo-CA-tus ... a-MI-cus ... ingeni-O-sa ... for-TU-na
3b. If the penultimate syllable is not long, i.e. if it contains a short vowel that is not followed by two consonants, then it does not get stressed. Instead, the syllable that comes before it is stressed, the "antepenultimate" (ante-paene-ultimum, before-almost-last). Here are some examples: sci-EN-tia ... fe-LI-citas ... SOM-nium ... O-culus
Although those rules may sound complicated, they are actually pretty simple. Even better: you can tell just by looking at about 90% of Latin words what the stress should be. Here are the you-can-just-see-it rules:
If the word is just one syllable, that syllable is stressed!
If the word is two syllables, the first syllable is stressed!
For longer words, look at the next-to-last syllable: if a vowel followed by two consonants: it's stressed! if a diphthong: it's stressed!
The only time you will be unsure is when you are looking at a longer word and you need to know if the vowel is long or short. You cannot tell if the vowel is longer or short just by looking because in most Latin texts the long and short vowels are not marked; they are only marked as long or short in Latin dictionaries. So, because you cannot know when to stress those longer words just by looking, I will continue to mark the stressed syllable for you for those longer words.
Based on this new system, I've gone through the slideshow of the sayings and removed the stresses from the short words. Now the stress is marked only for the words that are three syllables or longer: ORANGE for the stressed penultimate (long syllable), and BLUE for the stressed antepenultimate.
For your practice today, click through the slideshow and read out loud, letting your ears listen to every word (click here for the full-screen version). You might even click through one time just read the ORANGE words out loud, and then click through reading just the BLUE words out loud. Then go through the slideshow again reading the entire saying each time. This is a good review of all the sayings so far too!
Plus, you will find a random LOLcat below; you can see a LOLcat at random each time the page reloads :-)
The focus for today's lesson is a new kind of adjective: the verbal adjective known as a participle. You will be learning a lot about Latin participles in the weeks to come!
So, the first saying is Rex est lex vivens, "The king is the living law." You've seen Rex est lex before, and the new word that's been added, vivens, is a participle: "living," from the verb vivere, to live.
The other participles you will see in today's sayings are loquens, "speaking" (as in English "eloquent"), patiens, "patient" (which is where we get English "patient"), and sapiens, "wise" (as in homo sapiens). These participles are each from different verbs, but you can see the pattern they share: the -ns ending is the participle ending, much like "-ing" is the participle ending in English.
So, here are today's proverbs:
1. Rex est lex vivens.
(The) king is (the) living law.
REX EST LEX VI-vens.
From the root in Latin vivens we get English words like "vivid" and "vivacious."
This is actually a principle of the Latin legal tradition; you can see the saying included in the entry for REX in Black’s Law Dictionary.
2. Judex est lex loquens.
(The) judge is (the) law, speaking.
JU-dex EST LEX LO-quens.
Latin judex (also spelled iudex) gives us English "judge," "judicial," etc. Latin loquens, "speaking," is from the verb loqui, "to speak," as in English "loquacious" and "soliloquy."
You can actually translate these Latin participles in varying ways in English: you can use an English participle, "speaking," or you can turn the participle into a verbal clause of its own: "The judge is the law that speaks." You'll learn more about those translation options later on.
Latin sapiens is usually translated as "wise," but as you can see from the form, sapiens is a participle. It is from the verb sapere, which literally means "to taste, to have a sense of taste." That is the basic meaning, and then metaphorically it comes to mean "to have sense, be sensible, be wise." You've already seen a noun formed from the participle: sapientia, "wisdom," in the saying Sapientia felicitas, "Wisdom is happiness."
Latin nisi is a contraction: ni-si, "not if" or "if not," which in English is often equivalent to "unless."
Latin patiens is a participle from the verb pati, "to experience, undergo, suffer." So, someone who is patiens, "patient," is someone who is experiencing things, often negative things, someone who is suffering. From this Latin root we get the word "patient," and also the word "passion" (hence "passion of Christ," i.e. the suffering of Christ).
The idea is that there is no way to become wise without being patient, which might include some patient suffering as well. (Hopefully, you are not suffering too much with these Latin lessons!)
4. Nemo nisi sapiens liber est.
Nobody is free unless (he is) wise.
NE-mo NI-si SA-pi-ens LI-ber EST.
With the word liber, you are meeting your first Latin homograph, i.e. two different words that are written the same way (homo-graph). English has lots of homographs ("the wind blows, but you wind your watch," etc.); Latin has homographs too, but not as many as English.
Earlier, you learned the word liber meaning "book" (as in English "library").
Now, you are learning the word liber meaning "free," as in the word libertas, "liberty."
The words are written the same, but in classical Latin they were pronounced somewhat differently. The word for book, liber, has a short i (like in the English word "bit"), but the word for free, līber, has a long i (something like in the English word "beet," but we don't really have long vowels in English). The ancient Romans did not have any kind of marking to indicate whether a vowel was long or short, but later scholars used the "macron" ("long" mark) to indicate that a vowel was long, ā ē ī ō ū, and you will see macrons used in Latin dictionaries to identify long vowels.
So, the idea is that true freedom comes only with wisdom; nobody is free, nemo liber est, unless he is wise, nisi sapiens.
5. Bis puer est senex. (An) old man is (a) boy (for the) second (time). BIS PU-er EST SE-nex.
Latin bis means "twice," and you can see this root in all the bi- words in English, like "bilateral" and "bigamy."
Latin senex, "old man," is technically an adjective, "old," which is usually used to mean "old man." You can see this root in the English word "senile." The idea behind this saying is that a person can become childlike in their old age. Compare the English saying, "Once a man; twice a child."
We've been focusing on masculine nouns, but I don't want you to forget the feminine nouns! So for this week's review post, here's a slideshow you can use to quiz yourself on the feminine nouns. The first slide in each pair has a Latin word, with its proverb(s) as a prompt, and then on the next slide you can see the English meaning.
So, look at the slide, read the Latin out loud (ALWAYS read out loud!)... and see if you can supply the English meaning; then, advance to the next slide and see if you were correct. You might make a list of the words you were not confident about so that you can review them some more, perhaps by picking out some of those proverbs to memorize. The best way to memorize a word is by memorizing the proverb in which it appears; that way your mind really has something to hang onto.
The focus for today's lesson is some more practice with masculine nouns, plus a couple more ubi/ibi sayings.
And when I say practice, the main thing I have in mind is reading out loud. I hope you are using the audio and/or the stress-marked text to say the Latin confidently. The goal is to hear the words again and again so that the shapes of the words (the stems, the endings) will get in your head, along with the patterns of the sentences. So, please read out loud! You learn a language ... even a dead language like Latin ... with your ears, not with your eyes.
So, here are today's proverbs:
1. Optimus magister bonus liber.
(The) best teacher (is a) good book.
OP-ti-mus ma-GIS-ter BO-nus LI-ber.
You have seen optimus before, in the saying: Fames optimus est coquus. (You've also seen the feminine optima in these sayings: Mediocritas optima est, and Risus optima medicina.)
You have seen magister before, in the saying: Nemo magister natus.
So, the two new words are bonus and liber.
As you can probably guess bonus, "good," is where we get English "bonus," which is something good. You can also see the Latin word in legal Latin: a lawyer who works pro bono is working for the good, not for pay.
From Latin liber, "book," we get English "library."
As someone who loves books, I am of course a fan of this saying!
2. Bonus liber amicus optimus.
(A) good book (is the) best friend.
BO-nus LI-ber a-MI-cus OP-ti-mus.
You have seen amicus before, in the sayings: Amicus res rara, and Amicus verus rara avis.
So, that means you now have all the words in this saying! It is a variation on the previous saying, with amicus instead of magister. The word order is also reversed... but that's how Latin works: you can play with the word order of any sentence, changing it around however you want.
3. Potus furtivus dulcis est.
(A) stolen drink is sweet.
PO-tus fur-TI-vus DUL-cis EST.
You have seen dulcis before, in the saying: Quam dulcis libertas!
That means the new words are potus and furtivus.
From the root of potus, "drink," we get English "potion" and "potable."
Latin furtivus is derived from the word fur, "thief, robber," and from the Latin we have "furtive" in English.
Compare these English sayings about stolen things: "Stolen pleasures are sweetest," "Stolen fruit is sweetest," "Stolen kisses are sweetest," etc.
4. Ubi amor, ibi oculus.
Where love (is), there (is the) eye.
U-bi A-mor, I-bi O-cu-lus.
You have seen amor before in several sayings: Credula res amor est, and also these ubi/ibi sayings: Ubi amor, ibi dolor, and Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.
You have seen oculus before, in the saying: Ubi thesaurus, ibi oculus.
So that means you have all the words in this saying! In this version, instead of thesaurus, it is amor that holds the eye's attention.
5. Ubi dolor, ibi digitus.
Where (an) ache (is), there (is the) finger.
U-bi DO-lor, I-bi DI-gi-tus.
You have seen dolor before, in the saying: Ubi amor, ibi dolor.
So, that means there is just one new word: digitus, "finger," which also gives us English "digit" and "digital."
The idea here is that you can't help fingering a sore spot, and, metaphorically, you can't help but thinking about your troubles.
The focus for today's lesson is a new formula: Qualis... talis...
The adjective qualis means "what sort of, what kind of," and it is the origin of the English word "quality." Qualis can be used to ask questions like this:
Qualis pater? What kind of father? Bonus pater. A good father.
Qualis filius? What kind of son? Bonus filius. A good son.
Because qualis is a third-declension adjective, it has the same ending for a masculine noun or a feminine noun:
Qualis mater? What kind of mother? Bona mater. A good mother.
Qualis filia? What kind of daughter? Bona filia. A good daughter.
Then there is the related adjective talis which means "such, so" as you will see in today's proverbs like this one:
Qualis pater, talis filius. As (the) father (is), such (is his) son.
Compare the English saying, "Like father, like son."
All of today's sayings use this Qualis... talis... formula, and maybe it will inspire you to make up some of your Latin sayings using this formula like you did with the Ubi... ibi... formula back in Lesson 7.
So, here are today's proverbs:
1. Qualis avis, talis cantus.
As (the) bird (is), such (is its) song.
QUA-lis A-vis, TA-lis CAN-tus.
You've had the word avis before: Amicus verus rara avis.
Latin cantus, "song," is a noun from the verb cano, "sing." You can see this root in English words like "cantor" and "incantation."
This is literally true about birds; you can recognize a bird by its song. Metaphorically, it can refer to how a person speaks, where the way a person speaks reveals something about who they are.
2. Qualis avis, talis nidus.
As (the) bird (is), such (is its) nest.
QUA-lis A-vis, TA-lis NI-dus.
You've had the word nidus before: Parva avis, parvus nidus. That saying, in expresses the same idea as this one! You could also say Magna avis, magnus nidus, "Big bird, big nest."
That's what Qualis avis, talis nidus is all about: the bird and the nest match each other.
3. Qualis mater, talis et filia.
As (the) mother (is), so too (is her) daughter.
QUA-lis MA-ter, TA-lis ET FI-li-a.
You can see the root of Latin filia, "daughter" and filius, "son" (see next proverb) in English words like "filial" and "affiliation."
The word et in Latin is usually a conjunction, "and," but in this case it is being used adverbially like English "too" or "also." You can also omit the et like this: Qualis mater, talis filia. It's just a stylistic option that adds a bit of emphasis to the conclusion.
Compare the English saying, "Like mother, like daughter."
4. Qualis pater, talis filius.
As (the) father (is), such (is his) son.
QUA-lis PA-ter, TA-lis FI-li-us.
Latin pater, "father," comes from the same Indo-European rootas English "father," and you already learned a related Latin word, patria, as in: Patria mea totus mundus est. You can see this root in English words like "paternity" and "paternoster."
You could also use et in this proverb if you wanted to do that, just like in the previous example: Qualis pater, talis et filius. You could even say that this proverb formula is really: Qualis... talis (et)... (with the et in parentheses because it is optional).
5. Qualis herus, talis et canis.
As (the) master (is), so too (is his) dog.
QUA-lis HE-rus, TA-lis ET CA-nis.
Latin herus is yet another word that is often translated as "master" in English; specifically, it means the master of the house or, in this case, a dog's master. You might find it interesting to look at these three different Latin words in the wiktionary: herus, dominus, magister.
