Today is a catch-up day to review any lesson(s) you missed this past week and/or to work on whatever kind of practice is most useful to you. There's also a slideshow below to help you review all the verbs of the four different conjugations. You've had 51 different verbs so far!
And here's a slideshow you can use to review all the sayings with verbs... with cats. This time all the verbs are organized by conjugation: 1st conjugation (-at blue), 2nd conjugation (-et purple), 3rd conjugation (-it yellow), and finally the 4th conjugation (-it green). Remember that you can access the original post with more information by using the Sayings page or the Dictionary page which link to the relevant post.
I also made a printable crossword PDF with this week's sayings as the prompts. Screenshots below. I hope you will like the way the crossword puzzle gives you some hints as you try to supply the missing word.
Remember also to pay attention to the word order so that you can get used to the way that, in Latin, the subject can sometimes come before the verb!
And here is a little slideshow (with cats) of the words you have seen before:
And here are today's proverbs:
1. Nihil perpetuo durat.
Nothing lasts forever.
Nihil per-PE-tuo durat.
You haven't seen the adverb perpetuo, "forever, perpetually" before, but you have seen the neuter noun, perpetuum.
Likewise, the verb durat, "lasts, endures," is new, but it is related to the adjective dura, "hard," which you have seen in the superlative form: durissima, "hardest."
A fuller form of this saying, Nihil durare potest tempore perpetuo, "Nothing can endure for everlasting time," appears in the graffiti preserved at Pompeii. You can see a photograph and transcription from Pompeii here. That is a very ironic bit of graffiti: Pompeii was destroyed... but the graffiti has endured.
2. Fervet olla, vivit amicitia.
(The) pot boils, friendship lives.
Fervet olla, vivit ami-CI-tia.
The verb vivit, "lives, is alive," is new, but you have seen the participle: vivens, "living."
This is another version of the saying you saw yesterday: Amicus dum olla fervet.
Notice that you have two verbs here, and for both verbs, the subject comes after the verb.
3. Omne nimium nocet.
Every excess harms.
Omne NI-mium nocet.
The verb nocet, "harms, hurts," is new, but you have seen the noun nocumentum, "injury, harm."
The word nimium is a neuter adjective, "excessive," but it is being used as a noun here: "excess" (i.e. "excessive thing").
This is another version of a saying you saw earlier: Omne nimium non bonum.
4. Abundans cautela non nocet.
Abundant caution doesn't hurt.
A-BUN-dans cau-TE-la non nocet.
The 3rd-declension adjective abundans gives us English "abundant." The root is unda, "wave, flood," so something that is "abundant" is like a river overflowing its banks, full of water.
The adjective is feminine in form, agreeing with the feminine noun cautela.
Compare the English phrase, "out of an abundance of caution..." The English phrase even has its own wiktionary entry, which explains that it is an imitation of the Latin.
5. Veritas non erubescit.
Truth doesn't blush.
VE-ritas non eru-BES-cit.
The verb erubescit literally means "turns red," i.e. "blushes." The root is rubeus, "red," as in English "ruby."
This is another one of those verbs with -sc- that indicates a process: turning red. Some other -sc- verbs you have seen include crescit, "grows, increases," arescit, "turns dry, dries," and senescit, "grows old."
You have also seen several words with this -itas suffix, which creates an abstract noun: brevitas, "brevity," caritas, "charity," felicitas, "happiness, felicity," mediocritas, "mediocrity," utilitas, "utility," and veritas, "truth, verity."
This saying has a life of its own in English too: Truth doesn't blush. The idea is that the truth, no matter what it might be, has nothing to be ashamed of.
Today and tomorrow there will be some more practice with verbs... and then next week you will learn about the accusative case which is used for the objects of verbs. You will then b able to read all kinds of sentences in Latin. For now, just remember that you now know three different verb endings:
-at: 1st-conjugation verbs
-et: 2nd-conjugation verbs
-it: 3rd-conjugation AND 4th-conjugation verbs
And here is a little slideshow (with cats) of the words you have seen before to review some words you will see again today:
From the Latin noun varietas we get English "variety." You've also seen some related Latin adjectives already: varius and variabilis.
Notice that the the subject comes after the verb, a word order that English cannot imitate. I think that the variety of word order in Latin is one of Latin's many delights!
The verb docet, "teaches," is the root of English "docent" and also "doctor." You've already seen some Latin nouns from this same root: doctrina and documentum.
This is a saying that you can often find on sundials, where the sun's shadow teaches you the time. You can see an example here.
This is another example of the subject coming after the verb.
3. Aqua haeret.
(The) water is-stuck.
Aqua haeret.
You can see the Latin noun aqua, "water," in English "aquatic" and "aquarium."
The verb haeret, "sticks, is stuck," is the root of English "adhere" and "adhesive."
This is a Latin idiom used when anything gets stuck and cannot proceed as planned. Since water naturally flows and does not stop flowing, when the water is stuck, aqua haeret, that means things are definitely not going as planned. The Roman politician Cicero was in the habit of using this phrase in his letters, and he indicates that it was a popular saying by adding the words ut aiunt, "as they say."
4. Amicus dum olla fervet.
(A) friend while the pot boils.
A-MI-cus dum olla fervet.
The noun olla means "pot," in the sense of a cooking pot.
The verb fervet, "boils, seethes, is hot," and gives us English "fervent" and "fervid."
The idea here is that when you can feed your friends, your friends will be plentiful, but when there is no more food, your friends will disappear. The same is true metaphorically for whatever you might share with your friends: when those good times are over, the friendship will be over too.
5. Crescit fama.
Rumor grows.
Crescit fama.
You know all the words in this saying already, and this is one more example of the subject coming after the verb. The noun fama can mean "fame" in the sense of a good reputation, but it can also mean "rumor" in the sense of a report that goes around, perhaps true, but probably false. This saying emphasizing that as a rumor is told to one person and then to another and to another, the rumor "grows," i.e. it becomes more and more exaggerated. Compare a saying you saw earlier: Mendax fama.
Per usual on Wednesday, there's a vocabulary slideshow quiz, with cats too! Here's a link to the full-size show. There's an English prompt and also some Latin sayings to help jiggle your memory: can you supply the Latin word? The next slide will tell you if you identified the word correctly.
And remember: always read out loud. You learn languages with your EARS, not your eyes. Reading out loud will also help you hear the pattern of the verb endings! Ideally, you will read all the Latin sayings, but for sure you should read the saying on each cat slide. As always, if you want to review the notes and translation for a saying, you can use the Sayings list or Dictionary, which both have links to the original posts.
And here are just a few of the cats from the slides:
The focus for today's lesson is the 4th conjugation, although you may be surprised by this: for the she/he/it verb form (3rd person singular), the 3rd and 4th conjugations look exactly the same: the ending is -it.
So, for example, here are the 4th-conjugation verbs you will see today:
audit: she/he/it hears, listens
dormit: she/he/it sleeps
venit: she/he/it comes, arrives
invenit: she/he/it finds, discovers
And you will also see some 3rd-conjugation verbs today:
ruit: rushes, moves fast
quaerit: seeks, looks for
In other verb forms, however, the 3rd and 4th conjugations have different endings. In the infinitive, the 3rd-conjugation verbs have -ere as the ending (ruere, quaerere), but the 4th-conjugation verbs have -ire as the ending (audire, dormire, venire, invenire). You'll learn about that later; for now, just focus on the fact that the 3rd and 4th conjugations BOTH have -it as the ending for she/he/it verbs, as you will see in today's lesson.
And here is a little slideshow (with cats) of the words you have seen before:
So, here are today's proverbs:
1. Canities festina venit. Old-age comes quick(ly).
Ca-NI-ties fes-TI-na venit.
The feminine noun canities literally means "white hair," and thus comes to mean "old age."
The feminine adjective festina, "fast, quick," agrees with the feminine noun canities. In Latin, the adjective that modifies the subject is often equivalent to an English adverb, so that's why I translated this as "quick(ly)." Grammatically speaking, festina is an adjective in Latin, "quick," but it functions like an adverb in English, "quickly."
The 4th-conjugation verb venit means "comes, arrives." You can see this Latin root in many English words like "convention" (coming together), "circumvention" (going around), etc.
2. Hora ruit; venit mors.
Time moves-fast; death is-coming.
Hora ruit; venit mors.
The 3rd conjugation verb ruit means "rushes, moves fast, falls down." You can see this root in English "ruin," in the sense of something collapsing, falling down, etc.
And remember that hora literally means "hour," but also can mean "time" in general.
The idea is that time is flying by really quickly, and that in turn means that death is on its way (along with old age, as the previous saying explains).
3. Qui quaerit, invenit.
(He) who seeks finds.
Qui quaerit, IN-ve-nit.
The 3rd-conjugation verb quaerit means "seeks, looks for," and gives us English "query" and "require."
The 4th-conjugation verb invenit, means "find, discover," as you can see in English "invention." It is a compound: in-venit, "on come, come upon," i.e. "find."
The 4th-conjugation verb audit, "hears, listens," gives us all the audi- words in English like "audit," "audio," etc.
The name of the god Apollo is a 3rd-declension noun in Latin, and it is the subject of the verb here. (Remember, subjects can easily come after verbs in Latin because of the very free word order.)
I've added "when" to the translation here because vocatus is a participle, i.e. a verbal adjective, and participles often function in Latin as something equivalent to a dependent clause: when he is invoked, if he is invoked, because he is invoked, etc. Just which dependent clause you use depends on the context; where "when" makes the most sense.
The focus for today's lesson is one more set of 3rd-conjugation verbs ending in -it. Then, tomorrow, you will see how the verbs of the 4th conjugation work.
To get ready for today, here is a little slideshow (with cats) of the words you have seen before:
And here are today's proverbs:
1. Spes alit et fallit.
Hope encourages and discourages.
spes alit et fallit.
The verb alit, "nourishes," is the root of English "alimentary" and it is also the root of "alumnus" (which is itself a Latin word).
The verb fallit, "deceives," gives us English "fallacy."
I was a bit looser with the English translate because I wanted to somehow convey the sound-play of alit and fallit in the English. Literally, it would be "Hope nourishes and deceives." The idea is that you get your hopes up, which is the alit, but things might not turn out how you want; that's the fallit.
2. Herba mala cito crescit.
Bad grass grows quickly.
herba mala cito crescit.
The noun herba, "herb, grass," gives us English "herb."
There is an Aesop's fable about why weeds grow more quickly than the crops we plant because the weeds are the natural children of the earth herself, while what we plant are just her stepchildren on whom she does not lavish the same affection.
Compare the English saying "Ill weeds grow apace."
The noun equus, "horse," gives us English "equine."
The adjective alienus means "belonging to another, someone else's," and you can see the Latin word in English "alien." Because the noun equus is masculine, this adjective is also masculine in form.
You can see the root of the adverb velociter, "fast, quickly," in English "velocity."
The verb currit, "runs," is related to the noun you saw earlier: cursus. There are many English nouns from this Latin root, including "current," "undercurrent," "recurring," etc.
The idea is that we tend to envy things that others possess, while disparaging our own possessions. The other person's horse doesn't really run all that quickly; you just think that it does. Compare the English saying, "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence."
4. Semper inops quicumque cupit.
Whoever craves (is) always bereft.
semper inops qui-CUM-que cupit.
The adjective inops, "bereft, lacking, poor," is a compound: in-ops, "without-resources." You can see the op- root in English "opulent." In other words, Latin inops is the opposite of "opulent."
The pronoun quicumque, "whoever," is built on the pronoun qui, "who," that you saw earlier in this saying: Felix qui pacificus.
The verb cupit, "desires, craves," is related to the noun you have seen earlier, cupido, and of course you can see this root in the name of the god of desire, Cupid. (More about Cupid at Wikipedia.)
This saying restates an idea you saw in a previous proverb: Avarus semper eget.
5. Ignis numquam dicit: sufficit.
Fire never says: (it is) enough.
ignis numquam dicit: SUF-ficit.
The verb dicit, "says," is related to a the participle (verbal adjective) that you saw earlier: dictum, "said, something that is said." In our hot new climate with ever more wildfires, this saying has even more metaphorical power. The fire devours whatever is in its path, never saying "enough." It is a powerful image of insatiable greed. The saying comes from the Biblical Book of Proverbs.
