Andy’s Internet aid for Father Judge Latin Students

Many students who are new to the Latin language have difficulty understanding the differences between certain key terms and concepts. Several of the most commonly confused terms are explained here.

Many Latin students have difficulty recognizing the slight difference between a gloss and a translation. A gloss is one possible way that a word can be translated. Most Latin words can be translated in a number of different ways. Only in context can a word be translated, or given one certain meaning. Without being put into a sentence a word can only be glossed. E.g. res, -ei has many possible meanings, or glosses, such as thing, affair, fact, topic, wealth, business, situation, etc. Only within the context of the sentence would you know which meaning the author intended.

Some Latin students have trouble distinguishing biological gender from grammatical gender. Masculine, feminine, and neuter are the three types of both biological and grammatical gender. The confusing part comes when the biological and grammatical genders are not the same. E.g. the Latin word sagitta, -ae, which can be glossed as “arrow,” has a feminine grammatical gender and a neuter biological gender. You, therefore, can not always assume that a word’s grammatical gender is the same as its biological gender. For some words it is necessary to memorize its grammatical gender.

Also, a large number of Latin students have difficulty identifying the differences between the Latin imperfect and the English past tense. The English past tense can better be identified with the Latin perfect tense. They both describe completed action. E.g. “He ran” is a completed action. The Latin imperfect can better be identified with the English past progressive or emphatic tenses. They both describe uncompleted action. E.g. “He was running” and “He did run” are uncompleted actions because the action may have continued. He may be still running now.

Here are some hyperlinks which I hope will assist you in your study of Latin.