"How many altars are in the temple?"
Translation:Quot arae in templo sunt?
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Why is this arae and not aras? I feel like I dont understand anything about how the endings work
'Aras' would be the object of a verb. In other words, in English it would come after a verb, as in 'they built the altars', 'I love those altars', 'we have no altars'.
'Arae' wold be the subject of a verb. In other words, in English it would come before a verb, as in 'the altars are built of marble', 'the altars don't look stable', or 'the altars are in the temple'.
Hi! To understand Latin endings, first, you'll need to understand declensions. There are 5 declensions in Latin, but you'll probably only need the first 3.
1st Declension
Nominative
a, ae
Genitive
ae, arum
Dative
ae, is
Accusative
am, as
Ablative
a, is
2nd Declension (M.)
Nominative
us, i
Genitive
i, orum
Dative
o, is
Accusative
um, os
Ablative
o, is
2nd Declension (N.)
Nominative
um, a
Genitive
i, orum
Dative
o, is
Accusative
um, a
Ablative
o, is
3rd Declension (M/F)
Nominative
__, es
Genitive
is, ium
Dative
i, ibus
Accusative
em, es
Ablative
e, ibus
3rd Declension (N.)
Nominative
__, a
Genitive
is, um
Dative
i, ibus
Accusative
__, a
Ablative
e, ibus
Sorry for any mistakes, this was done as quickly as possible! I hope this helps. For more context, arae is the subject, so it's nominative. It's also plural.
To add to what has been said, ara is a feminine singular noun. To determine the suffix, you must first establish its role within the sentence. Here, arae is “performing” the verb — sunt (The altars are in the temple).
Because the noun is performing the action in the active voice (it is the subject of the question), the noun will take the nominative case, meaning no declension from its base form, so to speak, is necessary. All that must be done is a change in suffix to transform it from singular to plural.
Because ara is a feminine noun ending with the suffix -a, it will take the suffix -ae when it is pluralized.
I don’t understand the placement of the verb. Sometimes it is at the end of the sentence other times not
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Both Quot arae in templo sunt? and Quot arae sunt in templo? should be accepted, just report if one is not.
Verb placement is quite free in Latin and be almost anywhere in a sentence.
