First and Second Declension Adjectives

[@TheSandvichHoovy]

This is so much clearer than my Latin teacher... I may as well home-school

[@dvm170]

I WAS LOSING MY MIND OVER ADJECTIVES! This makes so much sense... thank you!!!

[@latintutorial]

Wonderful!

[@latintutorial]

There are no adjectives with 4th declension endings.

[@ausbrozo1008]

I had a Latin test for school. This video and all of your other videos are so helpful!

[@jenniferashburn911]

I really appreciate your videos. Thanks for making them so clear and providing plenty of good examples. I always find what I need here and it allows to explain and help my daughter with Latin.

[@macedonia4eva1]

Awesome videos! Thank you for taking time out of your intensive academic schedule to share your pedagogical style.

[@stjacquesremi]

I really enjoy these videos! I have tried so many times to understand the casual system via wikipedia, but, just the texts didn't help me. This, however, is absolutely helpful! thanks for doing this! As a composer, I was looking for some latin lessons soI can write songs in latin without sounding too religious.

[@fayrouza7415]

Seriously, you are such a brilliant teacher, and your videos help me a lot, so thanks! Hope I become a good teacher like you one day.

[@latintutorial]

Hey, thanks!

[@latintutorial]

That's a good question, and it can be tough if you've never seen the word. If it has an adjective, that helps (agricolae veteris is genitive singular, because the -ae can be gen sing, dat sing, or nom plural, but the -is can only be gen sing; agricolae veteri is dat sing; agricolae veteres nom plural). It also helps to learn to expect certain cases. You should expect nominatives and accusatives with transitive verbs, and datives with verbs of giving, or showing.

[@modigbeowulf5482]

I have Latin for Dummies. With your help and the book I can make some sense of Latin.

[@estella5744]

Thank you so much! This was so helpful! I was studying for a test and couldn’t quite figure it out....but now I can!

[@chloepeters1962]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I couldn't find my notes on adjectives and this was a *wonderful* help. edit: I got 100% on the test.

[@latintutorial]

Hey, congratulations!

[@Mila-hb1we]

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR VIDEOS. I WISH YOU THE BEST!!!

[@jackliu3922]

This is gold

[@latintutorial]

It doesn't really matter, and, especially if you're reading poetry, there's no standard word order (unlike in modern English, where the adjective typically comes before the noun, or French, where it comes after). In poetry, structures like chiasmus and synchysis tend to determine word order. But if you want some standard, Latin textbooks tend to teach that adjectives of size or quantity come before the noun, while all others come after. Also, the more significant word comes first.

[@patrickdaniello7590]

This has helped me out so much. Thanks a million!

[@latintutorial]

Check out my video on Latin Gender. Simply put, the nominative ending helps in many situations (like the -a is typically feminine, -us typically masculine, -um is neuter, -tudo is feminine, -tor is masculine, etc.), but third declension words can be complex. Until you get used to this, though, the best bet is to have a reference book handy like a dictionary.

[@raplopez4258]

Thank the ancient students who didn't want to learn all these rules and got lazy. From them we inherited the romance languages.

[@flaviospadavecchia5126]

Aww honey. That's not how languages work...

[@Jimmylai-q2p]

@@flaviospadavecchia5126I could say that’s just a joke obviously…

[@kindredgrove8133]

Hi Ben. Thank you so much for these videos! You are helping me immensely with my paleography class! I am just a beginner with Latin so I apologize if this rudimentary, but I am trying to figure out if accusative plurals (2nd declension) are used on a person's name, such as Alexandros or Robertos, and if so in what form. What is the plural referring to? I understand that many names are used with the nomative singular '-us', and since a person is singular, I am trying to understand when it may be used in plural form for when I come across names such with an '-os' at the end. Thank you so much! I appreciate all of your help. So glad I found your account! :) -Melissa

[@Aditya-te7oo]

Kindred Grove If a person's name is in accusative plural like 'Alexandrōs', then probably it means there are more than one person whose name is Alexander.

[@BFF1012]

this was a great review for my test tomorrow

[@fayrouza7415]

I'm in this now 😂👏🏻

[@gio-up3ir]

This helped me a lot!

[@ElvenAura]

Superb video and very clear. But(yes here is the but) how would you know what declension a word belongs to if you have never encountered it before without a reference like in an exam situation?

[@entmiami]

You are awesome.

[@LontanaDaScienza]

Thanks! But what would be a good way to detect whenever a word is feminine or masculine? I get it with boy and girl but words like water, table, fish etc. etc. Should you just memorize that or is there some way to detect?

[@catherineb6889]

I have an urgent question, if you're only given the noun and the stem for the adjective and given a repetitive ending for the noun like ae, is, o, etc. how can I figure out what ending to put for the adjective?

[@zanedavis3829]

I really like your videos your great, however, they can be a but dull. You should add pictures and analogies or sound effects to spice them up a bit! Keep Latin cool! Thanks

[@_sanakaram]

Hey can you please help me solving this Latin questions: 1-How many declensions of adjectives are in Latin? 2-Which adjectives are declined in the second declension? 3-Which adjectives are declined in the third declension?

[@raplopez4258]

I assume then that declension is approximately related to gender.

[@jenniferbelknap2016]

I love this video

[@remavas5470]

Can you maybe make a tutorial for ancient greek?

[@kingjae9541]

me 2

[@Marjiance26]

I think he is not specialized in teaching that language, which really sucks

[@sal2488]

Hi sir. Is there a way to spot which declension an adjective is? For example with nouns the different declensions have certain genitive singular endings, so i was wondering whether there is a similar thing for adjectives.

[@JEThorburnJr]

How do you get the text on your videos to be so sharp? The text on my videos keeps on coming out blurry.

[@Enoughdata]

In the song "Brave new World" for civ 5, and sung in Latin, there's a part where they say "Terra novam a Deo". It's just one sentence too so there's nothing else that the adjective could be modifying. Is it incorrect? Because it should say "Terram Novam a Deo" if it's supposed to agree with the noun's number, case, and gender. Or just "Terra nova a Deo", but novam doesn't seem to make any sense.

[@iscentgeorge39]

just checking to make sure, you can mix and match gender right? or no?

[@latintutorial]

You can't mix genders - the adjective gender has to match with the noun it's modifying.

[@juanmauriliovillalobos3166]

What if both the adj. and the noun are put like this 'puella,puellae'?

[@melugallagher]

I wish there were a greek tutorial

[@eshanjain815]

Can u do a ks2 one because I got a little confused

[@rdyt0]

It is said that there are feminem words of second declension.

[@fundamental5117]

My mind just broke and I have a question. So i'm learning and comprehending and loving Latin, then earlier i had a thought I can't figure out. If a Person, that should be in Vocative case because they're being spoken to, is somehow ALSO the subject of the sentence, hence Nominative case, which one is to be used? If somehow the subject of the sentence is a situation that would normally call for the Vocative case. How do you know which to do?

[@latintutorial]

Well, that’s tricky, because the vocative would be used when the verb is second person, not third. So you wouldn’t have the name repeated, because the name would be used in the nominative only in the third person. And stay tuned, I’ve got a video on the vocative case coming out tomorrow.

[@fundamental5117]

Excellent, I spend over an hour a day listening to your voice so I feel like you're my personal tutor. My wife says "can you turn your latin bestie down please." lol Looking forward to the next video!

[@latintutorial]

And I'm serious about the video tomorrow - there are a couple of interesting uses of the vocative that are tangentially related to your question. I think you'd be interested to learn about them!

[@fundamental5117]

@@latintutorial Oh i won't miss it! Thank you.

[@marianaflores2964]

What exactly is the number they talk about in Latin? Is it the declension?

[@emmanichols2358]

Mariana Flores I'm pretty sure it's whether it is singular or plural

[@marianaflores2964]

ohhh thank you!

[@thatguyfromthere1168]

Are there adjectives from the 4. and 5. declension?

[@Gwfe]

Clearly you're so much "better and smarter" than I when you have to ask this lol.

[@thatguyfromthere1168]

I am not as advanced in Latin as I am in other languages. You seem pretty desperate for reasons to mock me. This proves you are useless.........

[@Gwfe]

Shadow Gengar It's okay if you're not so good in Latin, no need to call yourself useless because of that!

[@thatguyfromthere1168]

Although my Latin skills are not spot on, they are surely better than yours, my friend.

[@Gwfe]

Ergo Latine pergamus! - te spero non mentitum esse cum dixisti te melius loqui posse...

[@BarboraRandom]

You sound so much like the man's voice in The Bible Project😱✨Is that you?

[@latintutorial]

No, not me!

[@yoshiyen_]

I don't want to be rude but shouldn't puellae bonae or puellas bonas be good girl because puella=girl and femina=woman??sry

[@aster965]

Yeneneh Shiferaw well im sure that you can use them interchangeably like in English.

[@la-civetta]

30 variants!! So why did the Romans use this system? What is the use of adjectives that agree with their nouns in case, gender and number? It seems to me that this system is not as efficient as possible, because there is a grammatical redundancy here? After all, in languages that followed Latin, this principle has been given up, or reduced at least. The meaning still is transported (via context). Also, reduced complexity is more practical in spoken language. But I would like to learn more about the pros and cons of different systems regarding this.

[@felixhaupt9669]

Natural languages don't often evolve according to what makes sense or what is practical, just look at all the irregular verbs you need to memorize in English or the completely screwed up spelling for an example. The Latin discussed here is also Classical Latin, a form of Latin mostly only spoken by the elite back then, who I can imagine used the fact that their language was overly complicated to pose themselves as smarter than everyone else. The general populous back then spoke Vulgar Latin, which has a greatly reduced level of complexity and is more akin to modern romance languages (no neuter gender, less case declension, and use of the demonstratives as articles). You are right, of course, a system like this is completely useless in communication and only makes it harder, but it opens up a lot of options in poetry and writing in general. Take for example the sentence "Puella pulchra puerum amat" (I'll assume you know some basic Latin). Because the adjective shows to which noun it belongs by sharing its features, you can move it away from the noun for stylistic effect. You could rewrite the sentence above as "Puella puerum pulchra amat" or "Puella puerum amat pulchra" without the meaning becoming unclear. And since you can in Latin also move around the nouns, this allows for a multitude of possible ways to say one thing. This might seem pointless to someone who only speaks a language with a very strict word order, like English, but I happen to speak German natively, which has a similar, although much less complex system, and can testify that reading a sentence like that is in fact a lot more fun and interesting, so it keeps the reader engaged and paying attention. It is very common for Latin authors to do this, so you'll come across it a lot if you delve into Latin deeper. Hope that answers your question.

[@la-civetta]

JürgenFranziskusvonBraunschweigderDritte Thank you very much for your detailled answer! I specifically appreciated and enjoyed the example of the permutated sentence. (I natively speak German, too, so while thinking about the sentence you used, I began forming it in my mind: Das schöne Mädchen liebt den Jungen. Das Mädchen, schön, liebt den Jungen. Schön, liebt das Mädchen den Jungen. ...?) Now, regarding evolution of languages and complexity, I still think that modern English, even with irregular verbs, is much easier in terms of grammar than Classical Latin, and hence more practical. I like to add that I share you enthusiasm about (interesting, unusual) use of language. :)

[@felixhaupt9669]

You're quite welcome. When referencing German, I was more talking about the ability to structure a sentence in various ways in general, not specifically with adjectives. I didn't think I'd come across another german here, so it didn't completely apply. As for the practicality of a language, are we talking as an auxlang/interlang or just for native speakers? Because the complexity of a native language is almost irrelevant for the learning child, it'll just instinctively know what's correct. As an interlang, I have to agree that Latin would be completely unusable. Nice to see other likeminded language nuts out here. Have you ever checked out Japanese? It does almost all basic things quite differently from European languages.

[@la-civetta]

Good point on native vs. foreign language! I assume many people learn English quite early, 1st or second foreign language. So there is a good chance they master it, if they have proper motivation. I have not yet made contact with Japanese, but I am interested in learning a sign language one day.