Latin Example Sentences

Most pages answering this query hand you a pile of mottos with no order to them, so your first-ever Latin sentence is a line of Virgil you have no hope of parsing. Here instead are graded Latin example sentences, from dead-simple up to the famous lines, each chosen to show exactly one thing - a case ending, or the word-order freedom that Latin's endings buy. Every sentence is grammatically correct.

If you want the language explained rather than sampled, start with How to learn Latin and the two grammar primers this page leans on: Latin cases and Latin declensions.

How to read a Latin sentence

The one habit that matters: read the endings, not the order. An English speaker's instinct is to assign roles by position, and in Latin that instinct misleads. Instead:

1. Find the verb. It is often last, and it tells you what kind of event this is.
2. Find the nominative. That is the subject, wherever it sits.
3. Find the accusative. That is what the verb lands on.

Because the ending carries the job, puella rosam amat and rosam puella amat both mean the girl loves the rose: the -am on rosam marks it as the object no matter where it stands. Get comfortable with that and the sentences below open up.

Dead-simple: one noun, one verb

• Puella ambulat. - The girl walks. (puella, subject; ambulat, one word carrying "walks / is walking")
• Puer currit. - The boy runs.
• Aqua est bona. - The water is good. (bona agrees with aqua - both feminine, both nominative)
• Roma est urbs. - Rome is a city.

Notice there is no word for the or a in any of them, and no separate word for is inside "is walking". Latin travels lighter than English: one verb does the work of three words.

Subject and object: the accusative appears

• Puella rosam amat. - The girl loves the rose. (rosam, object, marked by -am)
• Puer aquam portat. - The boy carries the water.
• Servus dominum videt. - The slave sees the master.
• Marcus librum legit. - Marcus reads a book.

The -am and -um endings are the whole story here. They mark the object, so you know who is doing and who is done-to before you have thought about word order at all. Swap the endings and you swap the event: servum dominus videt means the master sees the slave, the exact reverse, whatever order the words are in.

The other cases: of, to, with

• Filius regis venit. - The king's son comes. (regis, genitive, "of the king")
• Magister discipulis fabulam narrat. - The teacher tells the pupils a story. (discipulis, dative, "to the pupils")
• Gladio pugnat. - He fights with a sword. (gladio, ablative of means, no preposition needed)
• In terra vivimus. - We live on the earth. (in + ablative for location)

These three cases do in one ending what English does with the little words of, to and with. That is the trade the whole language runs on: fewer small words, more information per ending.

Verb endings carry the subject

• Amo, amas, amat. - I love, you love, he or she loves.
• Cogito, ergo sum. - I think, therefore I am. (Descartes, and a whole philosophy in three words)
• Veni, vidi, vici. - I came, I saw, I conquered. (Caesar - three perfect-tense verbs, no nouns, because each -i ending already means "I")

Veni, vidi, vici is the cleanest demonstration in all of Latin that the verb carries the person. There is not a single noun or pronoun in it, and it still tells you exactly who did the coming, seeing and conquering.

Famous lines you already half-know

Each of these is quoted as it was actually written, and each is still doing grammar you can now read.

• Carpe diem. - Seize the day. (Horace. Imperative carpe plus the accusative object diem)
• Alea iacta est. - The die is cast. (Attributed to Caesar at the Rubicon. A passive: iacta est, has been thrown)
• In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram. - In the beginning God created heaven and earth. (Vulgate, Genesis 1:1. caelum et terram, two accusative objects)
• Fiat lux. - Let there be light. (Vulgate, Genesis 1:3. The subjunctive fiat, "let there be")
• Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres. - All Gaul is divided into three parts. (Caesar's opening line. in partes tres, accusative for the division into)
• Omnia vincit amor. - Love conquers all. (Virgil. omnia, neuter plural accusative, "all things"; the word order throws the object first for emphasis)
• Arma virumque cano. - I sing of arms and the man. (Virgil, the first line of the Aeneid. virumque is virum plus the tacked-on -que, "and the man")

Read the Aeneid line again: arma (arms) and virum (the man) are both accusative objects of cano (I sing), and the -que welds "and the man" onto the end of a single word. Six words in, Virgil is already using machinery you met in the simple sentences above. That is the encouraging truth this page exists to show: the grammar in the famous lines is the grammar in puella rosam amat.

Where to go after example sentences

Single sentences are scaffolding; connected text is the goal. Our graded Latin stories are written entirely within a controlled vocabulary, so you can read whole passages far earlier than you could tackle unedited Cicero. The free Latin course teaches the common 1,000 words these sentences are built from, in frequency order, and Latin numbers covers counting. If the sentences made Latin look approachable, How long does it take to learn Latin? sets honest expectations for the road ahead.