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- "Quomodo te habes Marce?"
103 Comments
Marce is the vocative form of Marcus, used when you're addressing the person.
Ah-ha! Yes. Thank you for mentioning that. A lingot for you. That helps it make sense, although I'd always assumed he was just calling him that because they were close and not because it was how they address anyone, directly.
Interestingly, Vocative form in Czech sometimes has an "-e" ending, like Petr - Petře (common first name) or profesor - profesore (professor)
So what you're basically saying is that if my name was Marcus in ancient Rome, people would call me Marce and never actually call me on my given name?
2230
When they were speaking TO you, they'd call you Marce, but Marcus if speaking about you.
Thanks, this is what i needed to understand what the previous comments meant
I appreciate DuoLingo launching Latin, but it's a shame the speakers (including the male speaker) possesses such a strong Anglo-Saxon/American accent when pronouncing most of the words. He blows his Ts, he pronounces the vowels like an American would pronounce them...and the same happens with his "D"s. The way he says "Quomodo" is just not right... As a speaker of five major Romantic/Latin languages (Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, Catalan), I must say he does not sound natural at all. I know we cannot testify 100% how Latin sounded exactly, but it definitely did not have those hints of Anglo-Saxon sounds, otherwise all these other languages would have evolved quite differently..
this is still in the beta phase. I'm sure they plan to rerecord everything properly before final launch. as a beta tester, i'm more than okay with it, personally.
I wonder if it would have for those speaking Latin in Britannia though? They would surely have had different accents across the Roman Empire!
- 1429
I disagree the accent is anglo/Saxon- American yes! But Latin was used in England too!
No offence to Catalonians, but since when is Catalan a major Romance language?
It clearly is though, it is spoken more than 10 million people that makes it more spoken than the majority of languages in the world
- 497
I've always thought it was one. Interesting... Not saying you're wrong, because more than likely I am; I'll Google it after this lesson.
It is interesting, I speak Spanish (native),some Portuguese and Italian and none of them have these vocative thing and they are Romance languages. I do know there is something like this in Slavic languages such as Serbian
Hello Conversely. Which dialects?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocative_case
In French, the vocative would be (used only in poetry) "Ô Marc".
don't you find the male speaker too unnatural? with a strong american accent?? have you noticed his o's? it's kind of embarrassing :-(
In modern times, Romance languages do not have cases even they originated from Latin. Slavic languages, on the other hand, do. Serbo-Croatian's got 7 of them (ablativus is divided into two new cases), while Russian's got a bit more if I'm not mistaken.
- 1052
Архаизмы. В современном русском языке 6 падежей. А с таким подходом как у вас - ну можно и феню и слэнги притянуть к науке.
Did you forget that Romanian exists and has a case system similar to that of Latin?
Interesting. English names sometimes have shortened or alternate versions, such as Billy for William, Jeffy for jeffrey, jimmy for james. Etc. Not the same sound but similar and slightly similar concept, but denoting much more of an intimate relationship. But no official vocative form. Never heard that phrase.
So does Welsh -- although it's not used with personal names [1]. As usual with grammatical distinctions in Welsh, it's the start of the word that's affected.
Pawb = everybody / Helô bawb! = Hello, everybody!
Boneddigion = gentlemen / Bore da foneddigion = Good morning, gentlemen
[1] At least, not in modern Welsh. You can still say A thithau Frwtws? -- Et tu Brute? :)
If the form always coincides with the nominative, this can be called the appeal or the form of address, not the vocative case.
I agree totally, so much so I'm disabling the sound especially as the pronunciation is not consistent classical latin IMHO.
I am getting a mixed message here: are initial h characters pronounced or not? With some recordings, with "habeo," it was. Here it is not. I feel the silent h would be more appropriate in modern times given other Romance languages, but older Vulgar Latin had the h pronounced originally, so which are we using here?
Yes, /h/ is supposed to be pronounced if you want a Classical pronunciation.
Currently Duolingo isn't using any real pronunciation because they tried to use Classical pronunciation and failed.
they really failed. the speakers have a strong american accent too..disaster
Your constructive criticism is very helpful. I especially appreciate how you offered advice on how an improvement could have been made, instead of just insulting the people who are working hard on something that's still in beta.
Simply offering an insult without advice when you know more than someone else would be a dick move.
Well, to me they're a mixture. So far I've heard what sound like Italian, Spanish, and British English accents.
The audio quality of the spoken examples suck. There is too much of an echo and they sound like they were recorded on a web camera. Also take into consideration that this is still in Beta, hopefully they'll clean up the audio.
- 2230
Did you try it? I think it accepts it. I agree that the "doing" is redundant - in British English, anyway. It might be more common or even mandatory in American English.
From the standpoint of a native speaker of Canadian English, I would say that the "doing" certainly isn't mandatory, but also isn't completely redundant; it subtly changes the perceived intentions of the question. It can either be added to make the question more informal and more strongly imply that one actually wants an honest answer to the question (and aren't asking simply as a formality), or it can be added to indicate one is checking on the progress of an ongoing action, event or personal state and the questionee's feelings towards the aforementioned.
I tried this too but it wasn't accepted. The translations and vocab are far to Americanised. The word order is also very dodgy. Tried this as a revision having studied Latin for 10 years at school - won't be pursuing.
Maybe it's an american flap d :) Everyone says that way in Novum Eboracum :)
- 556
The speaker needs to enunciate EACH word. Even after I was shown the correct sentence, when I listened to the recording, I could NOT hear all of the words.
I am so confused on quomodo. What's the difference between quomodo and quid agit?
When does one say "Quomoto" and when " Quid" in sentences like "how are you doing" or "how are you doing, Marcus"
Is the name Marce or Marcus? May you please explain this to me? Thank you.
- 2230
His name is Marcus. It is a case change. Latin has a case called the Vocative, which changes the ending to show the person (or thing) being addressed.
Perhaps this will come up later in the course, but if I wanted to ask "are you feeling poorly, Marcus?" Would that be "Habes te male, Marce?"
So we're expected to use the name given, as if WE ARE ASKING the question...but the answer uses the other form of the name, as if it's not in the Vocative case. Please explain how to differentiate.
- 2230
I'm not sure I even understand the question, but assuming I do, it's just that you NEVER translate the vocative case into English, for the simple reason we don't have one; we don't go around changing people's name-endings to show we're speaking to them. But once you understand that Latin does, and Marcus becomes Marce if you're speaking to him, that's it! Marcus in English is always Marcus. We don't muck about with the ending (except for possessives).
The goal is to translate the sentence into English. In Latin they change the form of the name depending on the part of speech, but in English we don't do that. So your translation should always use the name Marcus.
Quomodo means by what means, or in what way (which both can be said "how" in english) but it seems incorrect to extend it to how someone is doing. "By what means are you doing today?"
Regarding the pronunciation of «Quomodo» I can say the guy speaking is an American or someone related to the US.
Marce or Marcus....why should it be wrong if the name is spelt different? Surely its the rest of the sentence thats important and not the spelling of a name?
- 2230
The spelling of the name is important, because it demonstrates whether or not you have understood the vocative case, which is an important construct in Latin.
Marcus is his name. It becomes Marce when it’s in the “Vocative” case. The vocative case is when you are talking TO Marcus, like “Go do the dishes, Marce.” We don’t have this case in English of course.
I thought Marce was something else.. Usually it will keep the name the same
The question says Marce, but it marks your wrong for putting Marce; says to put Marcus!
- 2230
That is because it is wrong. We don't have a vocative case in English (the thing that, in Latin, turns 'Marcus' into 'Marce'). So, when we translate, we should give him his "normal" name of Marcus, not preserve a case change that is required in Latin, but non-existent in English.
How am I suppose to know whether you want Marcus or Marce? If you want Marce, why don't you say Marce? As it is now, you're wasting my time.
No. The comma is necessary in English to indicate that Marcus is being addressed. Latin, however, has a special case (called "vocative") which it emplots in such instances; here it turns Marcus into Marce.
Did Classical Latin even have commas? I can't remember ever seeing them used, and they would seem to be much less necessary than in English, given that Latin is much more inflected and thus much less dependent on punctuation and rigid syntax.
- 146
I think I am a little cross with the Latin course. I appreciate Marce is a form of Marcus - but surely this should be a "you have made a typo " instead of saying "this is wrong." There is some flexibility in spelling other words wrong but zero when it comes to people's names. this is somewhat infuriating. If I put habe instead of habes - it'll say "you've a typing mistake"
- 2230
But the ending in this instance is important to indicate the case. If you get it wrong, how is DL to know whether it's a "simple typo", or you have not understood the vocative case? In fact, I myself have no idea from your post whether you don't understand/recognize the case, or do, but made a typo. So how is an algorithm supposed to work it out? Although it's harsher, I think it's more instructive for DL to assume you don't understand the case, rather than pass it as a mere "typo".
- 1757
Latin is somewhat strict in declension and conjugation in that a different inflection entirely changes the meaning of the sentence. i.e. no room for typo, -e and -us carries over two entirely different meanings (except when you're translating from Latin to English)
- 2230
You are not translating a name, you're getting it wrong. His name is Marcus. See the comments above: there is a special case in Latin, called the vocative, which changes the ending, when you specifically address someone. But his name is still Marcus; the change doesn't mean he's suddenly changed his name, it's just used as an indicator that he's the person being addressed.
Truly, the prnounciation is awkward. Even as an American, I find the overly-American diction terrible. Most Americans are so poorly educated, the notion of diction is ineffable to the masses. Sigh.
