"Hello, Stephanus and Marcus."
Translation:Salvete, Stephane et Marce.
19 Comments
Stephanus is the nominative, used when Stephanus is the subject of the sentence, like if Stephanus is doing some action. Stephanus Marcum videt. -> Stephanus sees Marcus.
Stephane is the vocative and is usually used when Stephanus is being addressed directly. Stephane, Marcum video. -> "(Hey) Stephanus, I see Marcus."
I wrote Marcus instead of Marce, and my answer was wrong. Do I always have to write marce always?
In direct address, yes.
First declension names (i.e. those that end in -a like Corinna or Livia) have vocatives that are identical to the nominatives.
Second declension names (i.e. those that end in -us) have a vocative that ends in -e.
So:
"Davus a California venit" means "Davus comes from California."
But if you were to ask him directly, you'd need to use the vocative:
"Dave, venisne a California?"
Both are actually commands. The verb salveō, salvēre, ---, --- means 'to be well.
salvē is a command (be well!, but really equal to hello) to one person. "Salvē, Guitarmatt!"--Hello, Guitarmatt.
salvēte is the command to more than one person. Hence in this to Marcus and Stephanus.
Marce is the Vocative Case--direct address.
Estne Marcus? Are you Marcus?
Marce, quis est ille? Marcus, who is that man?
Vocatives. Why are there no preparatory notes? Learning solely from mistakes is very, very frustrating!
They are mentioned in the notes of the Greetings Lesson: https://www.duolingo.com/skill/la/Greetings/tips-and-notes
How wonderful! In all the time I have worked with Duo I have never known of this site. There used to be some notes with the German course, but I've never seen any for the French course, though I do have text books for the "modern" languages. And it's SO long since I did any Latin! Thank you so much for this tip!
When I click on the link it seems to just redirect me to the main Duo page. That seems weird and was not my intention. A link to all the notes on Duome: https://duome.eu/tips/en/la
If you use the app (at least for me with the Android app) the notes don't seem to be available (the light bulb icon). But through a browser they seem to be when you click on the lesson. I am not sure why this is.
I'll try your new suggestion first [working on a laptop]. I've printed out the notes from this lesson and have now found details of a primer, which I've ordered on-line. Lessons at my school never included anything so casual as greetings, except those exchanged with the teacher. I can still decline "table" though! Regards - and thanks again.
That's ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤ stupid. Why do names change??? That just over complicates everything
2039
Latin has a robust declension system. Sounds like it's not a good match for your interests. Feel free to drop the course, because this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Although I see you're also taking German and Dutch. Are you making similar complaints about their grammatical gender systems? Natural languages do things like this. You find it complicated because English does not have these features, so you're not used to them. English has its own complexities, but they don't stand out to you because you're used to them.
