Latin I Class Notes -- Week 9 (March 13)

Greetings!

I hope you're enjoying your "Spring Break."  With a winter storm in the forecast, it doesn't seem very Spring-like.  My apologies for the lateness of these Class Notes.  An educational conference this weekend messed with my schedule, and I'm a bit behind on my "to do" list.

This past week in class we worked with nouns and adjectives because it seemed that last week we had some confusion about the various endings.  We began by having half of the class compile a list of nouns from our chapters while the other half collected adjectives.  We spent most of the class period putting nouns and adjectives together.  

In English, putting an adjective in front of the noun you want it to modify isn't a big deal.  In fact, with a handful of adjectives and some commas, you can write some pretty descriptive sentences.  Latin, on the other hand, requires a lot more thought. Both nouns and adjectives are grouped in categories called "declensions" and have specific endings.  If you have a 1st declension noun and and 1st declension adjective, the process is simple -- just match the endings.  However, if you have a 1st declension noun and a 3rd declension adjective, it's not so easy.  When pairing nouns and adjectives, we determine the endings by considering number (singular or plural), gender (masculine, feminine, or neuter) and case (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, or vocative)

Examples:

Omnes puellae ambulant.  (All girls are walking.)

      (3rd decl. adj. with 1st decl. noun)

Defessae puellae ambulant.  (Tired girls are walking.)

      (1st decl. adj. and noun)

Cornelius audit magnas voces.  (Cornelius hears great voices.)

      (1st decl. adj with 3rd decl. noun)

Cornelius audit omnes voces.  (Cornelius hears all voices.)

      (3rd decl. adj and noun)

Although we didn't have a quiz this week, students should anticipate weekly quizzes.  Next week, we will have a quiz on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd declension noun endings.  This quiz will also have some translating and vocabulary from chapters 14, 15, and 16.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Review Vocabulary

-- Review endings for 1st, 2nd, & 3rd Declension nouns

-- Review endings for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Conjugation verbs

This week's links:

Class Notes

Have a great break!  See you on the 27th.

Mrs. Prichard