The first conjugation is the largest and most regular family of Latin verbs, so learning it hands you a key that unlocks hundreds of words.
Can recognize First conjugation present in a short Latin prompt
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The girl loves roses and sings.
The girls walk in the garden.
Зверніть увагу на виділені частини. Що у них спільного?
The first conjugation is the largest and most regular family of Latin verbs, so learning it hands you a key that unlocks hundreds of words. You spot these verbs by the -are ending of the infinitive (the dictionary form): amare (to love), laborare (to work), ambulare (to walk). The tell-tale vowel is a, which runs through almost every present-tense form.
Here is the present tense of amo (I love). Notice that the ending alone tells you who is acting:
| Person | Latin | English |
|---|---|---|
| 1st sg. | amo | I love |
| 2nd sg. | amas | you love |
| 3rd sg. | amat | he/she/it loves |
| 1st pl. | amamus | we love |
| 2nd pl. | amatis | you (all) love |
| 3rd pl. | amant | they love |
Examples: Puella cantat. - The girl sings. In hortō laboramus. - We work in the garden.
For English speakers: the habit to unlearn is reaching for a subject pronoun. English needs "I" or "we", but Latin does not: the ending -o already means "I" and -mus already means "we". So amo is a whole sentence, "I love". Read the ending first, and add "I", "you", or "they" only in your English, never in the Latin.
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Вправи для практикиThe girl loves roses and sings.
Amat and cantat are first conjugation: the -a- holds through every form except amo. Catullus builds his best-known line on the same verb, Odi et amo (Catullus 85).
The girls walk in the garden.
Ambulant is third person plural. No pronoun is needed, because -ant already says who.
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