The singular imperative is how Latin gives a command to one person: "Look!", "Come!", "Read this!".
Can recognize Imperatives singular in a short Latin prompt
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Hail, Caesar!
Seize the day.
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The singular imperative is how Latin gives a command to one person: "Look!", "Come!", "Read this!". You will see it constantly in dialogue, teaching, and inscriptions. The good news is that it is easy to form - for most verbs you simply take the present infinitive and drop the -re ending.
| Conjugation | Infinitive | Singular command |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | amare | ama! - love! |
| 2nd | monere | mone! - warn! |
| 3rd | regere | rege! - rule! |
| 4th | audire | audi! - listen! |
A few everyday verbs are irregular and shorten further: dicere gives dic! (say!), ducere gives duc! (lead!), facere gives fac! (do!), and ferre gives fer! (carry!).
Examples: Veni! - Come! Specta lunam! - Look at the moon!
For English speakers: Latin does not add the word "you" to a command, and there is no helper like "do" - the bare verb form is the command. So audī is a complete order, "Listen!". Also keep this singular command separate from the third-person audit ("he listens"): the imperative audī ends in the bare stem vowel, while audit carries the -t ending.
Použijte tuto gramatiku ve cvičeních kurzu A1
Procvičovací cvičeníHail, Caesar!
Ave is a singular imperative. Caesar happens to have a vocative identical to its nominative.
Seize the day.
Carpe is a third-conjugation imperative: the stem carp- plus a short -e (carpere -> carpe), like legere -> lege. A first-conjugation imperative would end in long -a: amā.
Procvičit v kurzu
Použijte tuto gramatiku ve cvičeních kurzu A1