Once you can ask "who?" and "what?", the next useful question words are ubi (where?) and cur (why?).
Can recognize Questions with ubi and cur in a short Latin prompt
Schau dir diese Beispiele an. Kannst du das grammatische Muster erkennen?
Where is the eating-house?
Why aren't you coming?
Achte auf die hervorgehobenen Teile. Was haben sie gemeinsam?
Once you can ask "who?" and "what?", the next useful question words are ubi (where?) and cur (why?). They open questions about place and reason, and they are short, fixed words that never change their form, which makes them easy to spot at the start of a sentence.
| Latin | Asks about | English |
|---|---|---|
| ubi? | place | where? |
| cur? | reason | why? |
Examples: Ubi est mater? - Where is mother? Ubi habitas? - Where do you live? Cūr ploras? - Why are you crying? Cūr Romam is? - Why are you going to Rome?
An answer to cūr usually begins with quod (because): Cūr ploras? Quod tristis sum. - Why are you crying? Because I am sad.
For English speakers: as with other Latin questions, there is no "do" and no subject pronoun to insert - ubi habitas? is literally "where you-live?" and means "Where do you live?". One warning: ubi also serves as "when/where" (as in "the place where...") inside longer statements, but at A1 you will nearly always meet it as the plain question "where?". Keep cūr ("why?") apart from the answer word quod ("because"), since the two often sit in the same short exchange.
Wende diese Grammatik in den Übungen des Kurses A1 an
ÜbungsaufgabenWhere is the eating-house?
Ubi asks about place, and the answer comes in the ablative. Popina is what Romans called an eating-house; thermopolium is Plautus's word, used by archaeologists for the Pompeian counters.
Why aren't you coming?
Cur is 'why', and it opens the question. The answer comes with quod or quia: Quod aeger sum.
Im Kurs üben
Wende diese Grammatik in den Übungen des Kurses A1 an