There are many different pronunciations of Latin. Currently the most common in English-speaking countries is the restored ancient pronunciation described below, which is a fairly close approximation of the way educated Romans of the late Republic pronounced Latin. Even in antiquity, however, there was some variation in pronunciation, and this variation greatly increased in the middle ages, when Latin was commonly pronounced like the pronouncer’s native language. Remnants of the diverse pronunciations produced by this system can be found in what is now known as ecclesiastical or church Latin (which is effectively pronounced like Italian) and in Latin names that have become part of the English language (which are effectively pronounced like English). For example the name Cicerō is pronounced Kikero in the restored pronunciation, Cheechero in the ecclesiastical pronunciation, and Sisero in the English pronunciation.

In the nominative this pronoun is not used nearly as often as its English equivalents, because the relevant information is normally conveyed in the verb endings. In the genitive eius and eōrum/eārum are used for possession freely; there is no possessive adjective for this pronoun as there are for the personal and reflexive pronouns. The genitives eius and eōrum, of course, do not agree with the nouns possessed: it is purely coincidental that one happens to end in -us and the other in -um. Thus māter eius means ‘his/her/its mother’, māter eōrum ‘their (masculine possessors) mother’, and māter eārum ‘their (feminine possessors) mother’.

In addition to the two past indicative tenses we have so far seen, the perfect (‘he did, he has done’) and the imperfect (‘he was doing, he used to do’), Latin has a pluperfect (‘he had done’). In the active, the pluperfect is formed by attaching an ending formed like the imperfect of sum to the perfect stem of the verb (third principal part minus -ī). In the passive, it is formed by adding the imperfect of sum to the perfect participle (fourth principal part). See the table on the next page.

In Latin, all nouns have a gender; that is, every noun is inherently masculine, feminine, or neuter. Words for male humans are normally masculine and words for female humans are normally feminine, but words for things can belong to any of the three genders. Gender is important because adjectives in Latin assume the same gender as the nouns they modify; often you cannot tell which noun an adjective goes with unless you know the genders of the nouns in the sentence.

Reading longer passages is different from reading isolated sentences. When dealing with a connected passage it is necessary to choose carefully between the different English translations available for each word or phrase, any of which might have been acceptable when reading the sentence in isolation, in order to produce a coherent translation that hangs together. Sometimes one has to go beyond the translation possibilities already learned and come up with synonyms, or be creative in re-arranging words, in order to get a translation that makes sense and is grammatical in English. So reading connected passages is a special skill that needs to be developed separately, just like knowledge of the case system or a good vocabulary.

So far we have discussed only what grammarians call simple sentences: sentences with only one verb. Latin sentences can, and usually do, have more than one verb, and one of the greatest challenges of translating Latin is working out how to break down the long sentences that result.

Latin is an ancient Indo-European language; that is, it is one of the oldest known members of a large family of languages. It is related, with varying degrees of closeness, to all the other members of that family, including ancient languages such as Greek, Sanskrit, Gothic, Old Irish, and Hittite, as well as modern languages including English, German, Welsh, Russian, Hindi, Persian, and Armenian. The languages to which it is most closely related are the ‘Romance’ (i.e. Roman) languages that descend directly from Latin; these include Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian. English is a ‘Germanic’ language and not descended from Latin, but rather related to it as a niece to an aunt; the structure of English is very different from that of Latin. English vocabulary, however, has been heavily influenced by Latin (often via French), so that many Latin words have English derivatives.

In addition to meaning ‘since’ or ‘because’, cum can mean ‘although’. As there is considerable potential for confusion when a word can mean both ‘since’ and ‘although’, Roman authors usually took care to make it clear from the context when cum meant ‘although’; often they did this by adding tamen ‘nevertheless’ to the main clause. In this meaning, just as when it means ‘since’, cum takes a subjunctive, with the choice among subjunctives determined by sequence of tenses and the English translations of those subjunctives being indicatives (see chapter 46.3).

Sequence of Tenses

The imperfect subjunctive, like the present subjunctive, does not have a fixed translation; its meaning depends on its construction. One construction in which the imperfect subjunctive is often used is the purpose clauses discussed in chapter 15.2: these use either present or imperfect subjunctive for the subordinate clause depending on the tense of the main verb. This relationship between the tense of the main verb and the tense of the subjunctive is called ‘sequence of tenses’ and is one of the most important rules of Latin syntax. Indicative tenses fall into two groups, primary and historic (also called primary and secondary); primary tenses in the main verb result in present subjunctives in the subordinate clause, and historic tenses in the main verb result in imperfect subjunctives in the subordinate clause. Of the tenses we have so far seen, the present and future are primary; the imperative, deliberative subjunctive, and hortatory subjunctive (though not strictly speaking tenses at all) also function as primary tenses. The only historic tense we have so far seen is the perfect. Therefore:

The tense of the subordinate verb can sometimes help resolve an ambiguous main verb. For example, in a text where long vowels are not marked librum emit might mean either ‘he is buying the book’ (emit with short e) or ‘he bought the book’ (ēmit), but librum emit ut nobis daret has to mean ‘he bought the book to give it to us’ (daret is an imperfect subjunctive, so the main verb must be a perfect indicative).

English also has a sequence of tenses, though it does not work quite like the Latin sequence, and therefore when a purpose clause has a historic main verb and an imperfect subjunctive the translation pattern is different from that seen in the last chapter: such purpose clauses are translated with an infinitive or with a clause beginning ‘in order to’, ‘in order that … would’, or ‘so that … would’, rather than with ‘will’. The infinitive and ‘in order to’ can be used only if the subject of the subjunctive is the same as the subject of the sentence's main verb.

So far all the verbs we have seen belong to the third conjugation. The first and second conjugations function somewhat differently.

Formation of Perfect and Pluperfect Subjunctives

In addition to the present and imperfect tenses, the subjunctive also has perfect and pluperfect tenses. Like all subjunctive forms, these have no fixed translations but rather a variety of meanings depending on the constructions in which they are found. In formation the perfect subjunctive is very similar to the future perfect indicative, particularly in the active. See the tables on the following pages.

Deponents and irregular verbs are entirely regular in both these subjunctive forms. The deponents form perfect subjunctives vēnātus sim, veritus sim, etc. and pluperfect subjunctives vēnātus essem, veritus essem, etc. The irregulars form perfect subjunctives fuerim from sum, potuerim from possum, etc. and pluperfect subjunctives fuissem from sum, potuissem from possum, etc.

Sequence of Tenses

Sequence of tenses, the Latin principle whereby the choice of which subjunctive to use in a subordinate clause is determined by the tense of the main verb (see chapter 16.1), also applies to perfect and pluperfect subjunctives. The perfect subjunctive appears after primary tenses, like the present subjunctive, and the pluperfect subjunctive appears after historic tenses, like the imperfect subjunctive. The details are:

But there is also a difference of meaning between the present and perfect subjunctives and between the imperfect and pluperfect subjunctives: the present and imperfect refer to things that happen at the same time as or after the main clause, while the perfect and pluperfect refer to things that happen before the main clause. In a sentence such as ‘When they were together they were blissfully happy’, the action of the subordinate clause (‘they were together’) takes place at the same time as the action of the main clause (‘they were blissfully happy’). In a sentence such as ‘When he had eaten he went to bed’, the action of the subordinate clause (‘he had eaten’) takes place before the action of the main clause (‘he went to bed’). And in a sentence such as ‘She brought food so that everyone could eat’, the action of the subordinate clause (‘everyone could eat’) takes place after the action of the main clause (‘she brought food’).