Salvēte omnēs! I hope you are enjoying these lessons in basic Latin. If you are just joining, here are the links that will help you catch up:
Here are some basic phrases of conversational Latin, or “time traveler’s Latin” if you suddenly find yourself whisked back to Ancient Rome. I am not by any means an expert on conversational Latin, but this is certainly enough to get you started. There are whole books and conventions devoted to reviving spoken Latin, though.
New Grammar and Vocabulary
The grammar required for polite conversation is a little too detailed to study formally here, but you will notice the imperative singular and plural of some verbs, and some of the conjugation of valeō in the present tense. You may also notice that to turn a statement into a question, sometimes the particle -ne is tacked on to the end of a word. There are other ways of asking a question, such as the interrogative pronoun quid. And let’s learn the conjugation of valeō since we will be using it so much:
| Latin | English | Audio (Classical) |
|---|---|---|
| valeō | I am well | |
| valēs | you are well | |
| valet | he, she, it is well | |
| valēmus | we are well | |
| valētis | you all are well | |
| valent | they are well |
New Sentences
| Latin | English | Audio (Classical) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salvē! | Hello/hi/greetings/hope you are well | addressing one person | |
| Salvēte! | Hello, etc. | addressing more than one person | |
| Valē! | Goodbye, farewell | to one person | |
| Valēte! | Goodbye, farewell | to more than one person | |
| Avē! | Hail/hello/farewell | to one person | |
| Avēte! | Hail/hello/farewell | to more than one person | |
| Nōmen mihi est ... | My name is ... | Literally it is more like “The name for me is ... ” using the dative case, and the blank for your name could be elsewhere in the sentence, i.e., “Nomen mihi ... est”. | |
| Meum nōmen est ... | My name is ... | This uses the possessive adjective to modify nomen, so it is closer to a literal translation as we see it in English, but I don’t see it used as frequently in Latin. And again the word placement can vary. | |
| Quid agis? | How are you/ what’s up/ what are you doing? | to one person | |
| Quid agitis? | How are you? | to more than one person | |
| Optimē | Very well | ||
| Bene | Well | ||
| Satis bene | Well enough | ||
| Malē | Not well | ||
| Pessimē | Very badly | ||
| Valēsne? | Are you well? | to one person | |
| Valētisne? | Are you well? | to more than one person | |
| Ita vērō / ita | Yes indeed, yes, it is so | ||
| Nōn ita/ nōn / minimē | No, not at all | ||
| Valeō | I am well/ in good health. | ||
| Valēmus | We are well. | ||
| Nōn valeō. | I am not well. | ||
| Et tū/vōs? | And you? | ||
| Quid novī? | What’s new? | ||
| Nūllum multum | Nothing much | ||
| Mē paenitet/ doleō / mea culpa | I’m sorry/ my fault. | ||
| Ignōsce mihi | Excuse me, forgive me | ||
| Nōn intellegō | I don’t understand. | ||
| Licetne? | Is it permitted/ may I? | ||
| Placetne? Quaesō | Please? | There is no one way to say “please” in Latin, these are just a few | |
| Tibi grātiās agō | Thank you | to one person | |
| Vōbis grātiās agō | Thank you | to more than one person | |
| Grātiās / multās grātiās | Thanks/ thanks very much |
Omnibus vōbīs multās grātiās agō. (Thank you all very much). For the next lesson it is about time to start systematically introducing some 1st declension nouns and a few of the cases. Valēte!
Practice
| Practice and learn the words and phrases in this lesson | |
|---|---|
| Step one | First learn the words using this lesson: |
| Step two | Next try learning and writing the sentencing using this: |
| Note that the Memrise stage covers the content for all lessons in each stage. If you are skipping previous stages you may need to manually "ignore" the words in previous levels (use the 'select all' function) | |