- Forum >
- Topic: Latin >
- "Tu linguae Latinae studes."
101 Comments This discussion is locked.
1569
Just a thought about the verb "studeo" taking the dative case: according to one of the dictionaries I use (Gaffiot, a latin-french dictionary), studeo actually means "to dedicate oneself to X", so it makes sense to use the dative case.
The word "Studium" means not only "study", but also "dedication", "application", "zeal" etc.
- 674
Thank you very much, friend. No idea about the use of dative with this verb, I was in shock, because I translated mentally from Spanish (my mother language) , in which this verb "asks" for a direct complement, like in many other languages, so I could not expect an "indirect" complement. But your explanation is very clear. A lingot for you.
Same here, Iván! I saw "study" and I used accusative as in Spanish this verb asks for a direct complement. So I guess is like in German. Some verbs take the dative case, some others the accusative one. =)
There's no such thing as a direct or indirect complement. A complement comes after a verb of state and describes the subject. A direct object receives the action of a transitive verb. An indirect object receives the direct object.
In Latin, "studere" takes the dative because it literally means "to dedicate oneself to".
Shouldn't Linguae Latinae be Linguam Latinam since they're the answer to 'What do you study'? Per example in the hints note thing for this exercise?
It helps me to think of the translation of studeo, studere being "to apply oneself to". Then the dative makes more sense.
- 169
I checked a dictionary and studeo takes dative, so it's in fact correct. Your reasoning is correct but some verbs require dative rather than accusative, so I assume you have to memorise them.
Studere takes the dative because it literally means "to dedicate oneself to". Therefore Beingfollowed's reasoning is off because he's using English logic on Lain.
Damnnn, thanks for the answer. They downvoted me but it isn't visible on mobile, i'll search it then, thanks!
you can find all the tips for latin at https://duome.eu/tips/en/la I printed them out and am using as a reference, with notes from the comments. :-)
- 696
Wow, totally excellent, thanks for posting that link. When I tried to print it off the website, the navigation bar at the top of the site, would repeat on each page, covering essential text. I hope Duolingo creates an option for a printer friendly version.
In the meantime, I selected the text, then copied and pasted it into an OpenOffice Text document. It looks a little funky, but it works.
Thanks a bunch, Rick!
It's the dative. The ending ae can mean nominative plural, but also genitive and dative singular.
I am growing frustrated. I am a new Latin learner. I do have a couple of Latin Grammar books for reference, and use online resources. It would be so much more helpful if at least some of these questions had an explanation of why the noun declination / ending is what it is, and why? I honestly can't make any sense of it and am just entirely guessing.
Don't become frustrated. You will get used to it. I see that you are learning German, and in German you already have four of the cases which Latin also has. Nominative, Genitive, Dative and Accusative. Most of the times the Nominative just means that the word is the subject of the sentence. The Accusative most of the times means that something is an object. Marcus (Nom, subject) Marcum (Acc, object) vocat. Marcus calls Marcus. The second most widely used function of the Accusative is in a construction with a verb in the infinitive (Accusativus cum Infinitivo). Eg: Marcus videt me (Acc) dormire (Inf). Here the word in the Accusative becomes a subject: Marcus sees that I am sleeping. Or, more similar to English: Marcus sees ME SLEEPING. Another important function of the Accusative is to indicate movement towards. Marcus in villam (Acc) currit. Marcus runs towards the house. (Instead of: Marcus in villa (Ablative) currit. Marcus runs inside of the villa.) Now the Genitive's main function is to show possession (or rather connection or affiliation to something. Odium Marci (Gen). The hatred of Marcus. Notabene that this can also mean: The hatred towards Marcus. The Dative case's main function is pretty much answering the question: for whom? Eg: Dona nobis (Dat) pacem. Give (whom? –) us peace. Now to the other cases. The Vocative is easy to learn. It is used when directly adressing something. Salve Marce (Voc)! Hello Marcus! The ending us (in the o-declension) becomes -e, and if it is ius it becomes -i (like in Salve Juli! Hello Julius!). There are a very few exceptions (like cancellarius, which becomes cancellarie) and many words in the u-declension (that also in the Nominative end in -us). Besides that it is usually just the Nominative (eg. Senator! Senatores! Filia! Vir! Viri!). So that's easy. The Locative exists mostly for smaller places. You'll just get to know that words like humi or domi or Californiae are the Locative. You can for instance not however say "Sicilae" because Sicily is too big for the Locative. Besides that the Ablative Case is used for the location. Mater in casa (Abl) est. The mother is in the house. It is also often used to show the "from where". As in: Pater (a) Roma (Abl) (ad) Siciliam (Acc) it. The father goes from Rome to Sicily. The Ablative has many other functions. The main ones for the beginning are showing the means of something (the way how or through what something is done): Romulus Remum gladio (Abl) necat. Romulus kills Remus by the sword. Other functions of the Ablative are plenty but these are I think the most basic ones. Same goes for the other cases. If you know these you'll have a good start. I suggest that you learn the endings for each declension by heart. There are some silly but useful songs on Youtube where they just sing the endings. If that helps. So in the beginning you should be able in your head to repeat: us i o um o i orum is os is and a ae ae am a ae arum is as is. Etc. There are many prepositions that take the Ablative or the Accusative form (or they can take both and may have different meanings). For instance: ad, contra, ante, apud, inter, per, post come with the Accusative, a, ab, abs / e, ex / de / cum / sine come with the Ablative (and in can come with Ablative or Accusative, depending on whether it gives the location or the motion towards something). Also verbs can determine the cases. As in this: Tu linguae Latinae studes. Linguae Latinae is Dative because the word studere usually comes with dative. At some point this will just be natural for you, if you continue learning. There is also a book from Reginald Foster that explains all of this very easily, perhaps unlike many grammar books. It is called "The Mere Bones of Latin", if you want to check that out.
Absolutely brilliant and clear explanation. Thanks a ton! IfvDuolingo ever decides to provide an attachment within the app to clarify declensions i hope they allow you input!
- 1569
Don't be too hard on yourself, friend. Not understanding things is part of the process. Whenever possible try to make questions in the forum. This course is just beginning, but we should try to cultivate an active and welcoming community. :)
Sometimes things will seem confusing, but maybe the developers simply thought they shouldn't overload the tips with information.
Thanks to them. I have two very good books for learning Latin and I never went after page 20. They have lots of explanations. I am following this course without reading any explanation, I am almost golding the tree, and I feel that the correct form of the word is coming to my mind, both conjugation and declensions. Sometimes i stop to read the forum, but usually i acknowlegde de mistake and go on. This is how children learn. When I finish the course i will go back to the books to improve my knowledge. Making mistakes is a good learning method.
A few years ago I tried the German and Welsh Duolingo courses. Welsh was then in Beta. I seem to remember that there wew some grammatical notes accessible after the lesson. I think my memory is right on this because I have found s few which I had printed off for those courses. I cannot find anything like that here. Or am I just missing the obvious and not seeing where to go? I am getting really stuck because I need to see tables of conjugations, declensions, pronouns etc etc to learn them otherwise it just seems so random. I'll have to rummage and see if I can find some of my old text book from school if not. That will be 60 years ago now!
- 590
There are some notes for each topic on my laptop version but not on my mobile app. Click the light bulb.
- 913
Well, it is difficult to guess!!!! nous are subject to declination, meaning they alter the ending, depending where they are put in the sentence, like: subject or object... Latin has 6 declination cases. where the noun ending changes Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative Vocative and Ablative.... Then there is the gender of the noun that is influencing the noun endings in the declination too. Masculine feminine or Neuter. But with practice you will get the hang of it. Because Latin in a language with grammar rules it is good to learn ( I think) verbs are subject to conjugation, with verb ending.
Why is "You study latin language" incorrect? It says linguae latinae. Why would i drop linguae?
- 1506
Shouldn't it either be 'Latin' or 'the Latin language'? That is, not just 'Latin language' without the definite article.
That's less common, but there's nothing wrong with it. If you write that and you get marked wrong, flag it and report "My answer should be accepted."
Why am I getting sentences with the dative when I haven't learned it yet? It was so confusing trying to figure out why the endings kept changing when the notes at the beginning of the lesson only introduced me to accusative...
This is how Duolingo is introducing you to the dative. But if you read the other comments on this page, you will see the explanation.
That doesn't sound natural in English. Better would be either "You study Latin" or "You study the Latin language".
So did the Romans always refer to their language as "the Latin language" and not just Latin?
All languages, not just their own. These days we use the name of the language as a stand-alone noun, but in Latin it was an adjective and you needed the noun to specify.
Would "Linguae Latinae studes" work just as well? Since when it is "I study Latin" the translation was "Linguae Latinae studeo" not "Ego Linguae Latinae studeo"? Thank you
Yes, the subject pronoun is almost always optional. The early part of the course uses the subject pronouns to teach you what they are, and the later part of the course uses them less, generally just to test your knowledge of verb conjugation and the like.
As explained above, "studere" means "to dedicate oneself to (something)" and therefore takes the dative, not the accusative.
This is ridiculous, I put language and it's wrong, I haven't put in the previous one and it is still wrong.. What the hell
What was your full answer?
"You study Latin" is fine.
"You study the Latin language" is fine.
"You study Latin Language" is not fine.
Also make sure you didn't have any typos or extra spaces.
Because in English it's either just "Latin" or "the Latin language". It cannot be "Latin language" without the article.
- 696
Ok, I think I finally get it. "You speak Latin" or "You speak the Latin Language" would both be correct. But "the" wasn't offered as a choice, so the correct English translation, using the provided words, had to be "You speak Latin". But when actually using the Latin language, you have to say "latin language", because in Latin they don't say just "latin".
Exactly. In Latin, you need to say that you speak X language, explicitly using the word for "language" because X was simply an adjective that never just stood in for "X language" the way it idiomatically does in English. And Latin does not have articles. If you want to say you speak X without using the word for "language", you need to use the adverb form of it. Literally "I speak Xly".
But in English, which does have articles, we can say "I speak X" or we can say "I speak the X language". But we simply don't say "I speak X language".
Why is it that when they talk about Latin it's always "linguae Latinae"? Why is linguae necessary?
Because "Latinae" is just an adjective. Imagine you said you were looking at red. A red what?
I know it's a silly question, but would this work as a question? "Do you study Latin?"
No. It would have to be "Studesne linguae latinae?" Or for the plural you, "Studetisne linguae latinae?"
Because that's not correct in English. You can say:
You study Latin or You study the Latin language
It's due to the fact that when Latin is in front of language, it becomes an adjective.
Yes, intransitive verbs, I think second conjugation, that affect or show personal relationships take the dative - seems like a minutiae.
Personal relationships have nothing to do with it, and I'm pretty sure the conjugation is also irrelevant. The Latin word studere, as explained in the top comment on this page, literally means "to dedicate oneself to". That is why it takes the dative.
No way. Linguae is nominative plural, the case of the subject, and dative singular, the indirect case. In "You study Latin", Latin is the direct object, so it must be "linguam".
No, linguae is a dative here. Studere doesn't take an accusative, but a dative object.
"Linguae Latinae" is the dative because "studere" means "to dedicate oneself to".
Because we don't say that in English. As has been explained on this page before, it can be "You study Latin" or "You study the Latin language", but it cannot be "You study Latin language."
it should be "linguam latinam" (accusative case). Too many errors like this appearing in Latin Duolingo- Get your act together!!!!
No, it really should not be accusative. Studere takes the dative. If you read the comments on this page, you will learn why.
To echo what Rae.F said, please read all of the comments before posting, especially if you're unfamiliar with Latin. Many people have asked and answered common questions just like this one.
No, it should not. This has been explained multiple times in the other comments on this page.
And rightly so. That doesn't sound natural in English. Better would be either "You study Latin" or "You study the Latin language".
Why they read ae like two different letter? Together ae sound like the first "e" in elephant
Because they use the reconstructed latin pronunciation. There are some different traditions of latin pronunciation but the researchers tried to discover the original pronuntiation, regardless of we do not having tapes recorded by them neither a time machine. How did they choose this particular pronuntiation, that ae sounds like a+e, that c sounds like k?
Using each piece of information like a puzzle.
For instance, they found kikero in a wall of pompeia. It is badly written, it should be cicero. But we can deduct that the writer was not an educated person, AND that the sound is of the letter K.
For the ae being pronounced as two vowels they recurred to the metrics of the verses. In that days the number of syllabes should follow a defined pattern, so they studied lots of poems trying to measure each sound and discovered that ae should be two vowels and not only one.
At least I received that information from someone or somebook.
No, that's not correct. AE is a distinct sound in Classical Latin, not like A or E alone.
No. It can be "You study Latin" or "You study the Latin language", but it cannot be "You study Latin language."
No, that doesn't sound right in English. It must be the Latin language.
