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- "Puer litteris studet."
34 Comments
I agree. I am getting totally confused. Sometimes I get things right by a fluke, but recently am getting at least 2 mistakes per lesson. I have bought a couple of books to see if they will help but so far no luck. I don't want to give up but am having to force myself to do it every day at the moment.
Where exactly are these "tips" located? I don't have any in the browser version.
I thought the same given the context. Additionally, I thought that littera (singular) was an individual character (letter), and litterae (plural) was a piece of "writing" (and more specifically a letter). I donʻt think I would have jumped to literature for "litterae" as my first guess. I just havenʻt seen it used that way yet. (Iʻve mostly been exposed to latin text books, so it could be that my experience is too limited...)
I do not understand how literature is an indirect object, as opposed to a direct object. According to https://www.englishgrammar.org/direct-indirect-objects-2/, "The direct object is the receiver of the action mentioned in the sentence." In asking the question what does the boy (the subject) study? The answer, the boy studies literature. Wouldn't literature, then, be a direct object, and thus need to be in the accusative case? The indirect object identifies the person/thing for whom/what the action of the verb is performed. Also taken from https://www.englishgrammar.org/direct-indirect-objects-2/ "The indirect object is usually a person or thing. Study the examples given below. My mother bought me a necklace. (Indirect object – me; direct object – necklace) John told Peter a story. (Indirect object – Peter; direct object – story)"
Any help you can offer to help my understanding would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. In attempting to learn latin, I am learning how little I understand about even English grammar.
It's the difference in how the two languages frame things. In English, study can be a transitive verb. In Latin, however, the literal meaning of "studere" is more like "to dedicate oneself to" or "to direct one's attention to" or "to be diligent in", as explained elsewhere on this page. That is why "studere" takes the dative and not the accusative.
I'm quoting Spanish Wiktionary entry:
4 Dedicarse a los libros, las ciencias, los estudios, estudiar. (=Dedicate oneself to books, sciences, studies, to study)
Uso: se emplea también como transitivo. (=Use: it is also used as transitive > accusative)
Source quoted: Glare, P. G. W. (editor, 1983) Oxford Latin Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press
The general, broad pattern for regular verbs in the present active indicative is
pronoun | verb suffix |
---|---|
ego | -o |
tu | -s |
id | -t |
nos | -mus |
vos | -tis |
ea | -nt |
I see a stupid mnemonic:
original soundtrack
must, isn't
http://dcc.dickinson.edu/sites/default/files/pres_imp_act_pass_endings_0.jpg