Latin Verb Endings Chart: -o, -s, -t, -mus, -tis, -nt

Amo is a complete Latin sentence. One word, two syllables, subject and verb both present: I love. The -o on the end is the I. In the present tense every Latin verb ends in one of six such endings, and each one names who is acting.

These six run through most of the active tenses with only small adjustments: the first person is sometimes -m instead of -o (sum, I am), and the perfect has a set of its own. One table, years of use.

Why there are no pronouns

Because the ending has already done that job:

• Dico. - I say.
• Dicimus. - We say.
• Dicunt. - They say.

123

1. 1Legit.
2. 2Coquit.
3. 3Currit.

Legit, she reads; coquit, he cooks; currit, he runs. The -t says he or she, so Latin needs no pronoun: the picture shows who.

Ego (I), tu (you) and nos (we) all exist. A Roman used them for contrast, not for basic information:

• Ego dico, tu taces. - I am the one speaking; you are keeping quiet.

Put the pronoun in by default and you have written the clearest sign of a beginner's Latin. If you would not stress the word in English, leave it out in Latin.

Spanish and Italian inherited this habit directly: Spanish hablo and Italian parlo are each a complete sentence, I speak. French wore its endings down until parle, parles and parlent sound alike, and its pronoun became compulsory.

Why dictionaries cite dico, not dicere

Every Latin dictionary lists a verb by its first person singular, I say, with the infinitive beside it:

This course follows the convention, so the vocabulary you learn here matches every other Latin resource. Learn the infinitive with the headword, though: amo and dico end the same way, and only amare and dicere show that they belong to different families.

The four conjugations

Latin verbs come in four families, and what differs is the vowel before the ending, not the ending itself:

Look down the columns: -t and -mus sit in every row. Beginners hear "four conjugations" as four times the work; it is one set of endings and four vowels. (In the first conjugation the -a- merges into the -o: amo, not amao.)

The third and fourth conjugations put a -u- before -nt:

• Dicunt. - They say.
• Audiunt. - They hear.

One catch, because this course prints no macrons. Habere and dicere look alike, though the e of habere is long and the e of dicere short. Tell them apart by the headword: the second conjugation keeps its -e- before the -o and the third does not.

• Habet. - He has. (habeo, second: the e stays)
• Dicit. - He says. (dico, third: the vowel is i)

sum: irregular stem, nearly regular endings

The verb to be is irregular in Latin, as in almost every language. So is possum, I can, which is pot- welded onto sum:

Look at the plural: -mus, -tis, -nt, the regular endings, all present. What is irregular is the stem flickering between su- and es-, not the endings. Very little in Latin escapes them.

• Deus est. - God exists.
• Domi sumus. - We are at home.
• Non possum. - I cannot.

Reading practice

Cover the English. Every I, we, you and they in the English comes from a verb ending, not a pronoun.

• Dicimus. - We say.
• Videtis et non creditis. - You see and you do not believe.
• Respondeo, sed non audiunt. - I answer, but they do not listen.
• Filius domini sum. - I am the master's son.

Mistakes English speakers make

What to do next

1. Say the six endings aloud until -o, -s, -t, -mus, -tis, -nt runs like a rhyme.
2. Run the drill below: build the forms from stem and ending.
3. Then meet this and that, and in chapter 2 the noun declensions.