Help with Latin

[Mark Chance]

Hello! I'm teaching Roman history this year as part of a classical education curriculum. My Latin is horrible. (Fortunately for the students, I'm not going to be their Latin teacher; unfortunately for me, the Latin teacher isn't available.) I want to start the year out teaching my students to respond to and/or use a few Latin phrases. Here's what I've come up with:

Tacete = All of you be quiet.
Sedete = All of you sit.
Ausculte = All of you listen.
? = All of you get in line.

Etiam = Yes.
Etiam, magister = Yes, teacher. (male)
Etiam, magistra = Yes, teacher. (female)
Etiam, vir optime = Yes, sir.
Non, magister = No, teacher. (female)
Non, magistra = No, teacher. (female)
Non, vir optime = No, sir.

As I said, my Latin is horrible. I'm not certain these are correct. Any Latin scholars available?

 

[Tiberius]

My grammar is better than my vocabulary, to be sure, but I'm not sure "ausculte" is, in fact, a verb. Generally, the imperative is constructed from the infinitive form of the verb less the "-re" at the end, with the plural imperative using "-te" rather than "-re". Thus videre gives us videte, and so forth. Ausculte would imply the existence of a verb "ausculre", which doesn't correspond to the common forms of any of the four conjugations of verbs. I'd go, instead, with "Audite me" for "hear me!", but that's just my preference and not in fact reflective of an expert's opinion on the matter. Not being near my books, I couldn't say definitively that your choice is improper, just that it looks funny to me.

 

[Tiberius]

And when you're looking for "get in line", do you mean "queue up" or "stop acting like jackasses"?

 

[kenobi65]

I don't remember much Latin from high school (25 years ago or so).

I do remember:

"Ite ad infernos" -- "Go to hell, all of you."

And, my freshman Latin teacher helped me with this one (my apologies if my memory isn't quite right on a word or two):

"Olim in galaxias longe procul..." -- "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."

 

[Mark Chance]

Ausculte would imply the existence of a verb "ausculre", which doesn't correspond to the common forms of any of the four conjugations of verbs.

The basic verb I was trying to work with was ausculto, -are. If that helps any.

And when you're looking for "get in line", do you mean "queue up" or "stop acting like jackasses"?

The former. I figure I can convey the latter via body language and voice tone.

 

[Tiberius]

The basic verb I was trying to work with was ausculto, -are. If that helps any.



The former. I figure I can convey the latter via body language and voice tone.

Ah, that does help. What you're looking for is "auscultate". I'll see if I can look up "queue" when I get home.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Etiam, magister = Yes, teacher. (male)

One of my Latin teachers insisted on 'domine' instead of 'magister' - Yes, master

Etiam, vir optime = Yes, sir.

Latin possesses the concept of implicit nouns.

For example, I can say 'vir magnus', or 'femina magna', for 'big man' or 'big woman'.

But I can also just use the adjective by itself, and in the absence of any noun in the sentence, one can be assumed... man for masculine, woman for feminine, or thing for neuter.

So "feminam magnam video" - I see the big woman - is essentially identical to "magnam video" - I see the big (woman).

(We see this in English, sometimes, with words borrowed from Latin. Corrigendum, for example, is a neuter form of a gerundive meaning "having to be corrected"... so by itself, it acts in English as a noun meaning "thing having to be corrected".)

So while "vir optime" - 'O excellent man' - is fine, you could probably get away with just "optime" - 'O excellent (man)'.

-Hyp.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Ah, that does help. What you're looking for is "auscultate". I'll see if I can look up "queue" when I get home.

QFT

Ausculto - auscultare (not ausculare - you need the "T")

Where we get the word CULTURE (though in a round about fashion)- losely meaning everyone around you and what they are doing.

 

[Tiberius]

In thinking about it, you might want to try "Lineam facete" (Create a line, from linea, -ae for line and facio, -ere for create). I'm feeling lazy and know that the next time I enter my bedroom I will collapse on the bed and sleep rather than consult my grammar, so I'm going to ask the locals to correct me on this one if I'm mistaken: I know the singular imperative form of dicere, ducere, facere, ferre lack the "e" you would expect (yielding dic, duc, fac, and fer, respectively), and am I correct in remembering that the plural imperatives aren't in any way irregular?