Latin Bk 1 Prelims 8pp 15/6/06 9:54 am Page 1

So you really want to learn

BOOK 1
New Edition
Latin Bk 1 Prelims 8pp 15/6/06 9:54 am Page 3

So you really want to learn

BOOK 1
New Edition

Theo Zinn M.A. (Oxon.)

Series Editor: Nicholas Oulton M.A. (Oxon.)

www.galorepark.co.uk

Independent Schools
Examinations Board
Latin Bk 1 Prelims 8pp 15/6/06 9:54 am Page 4

Published by ISEB Publications, an imprint of

Galore Park Publishing Ltd
19/21 Sayers Lane, Tenterden, Kent TN30 6BW
www.galorepark.co.uk

Text copyright © Theo Zinn 2006

Illustrations copyright © Ian Douglass 2006

The right of Theo Zinn to be identified as author of this Work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Typography and layout by Typetechnique, London W1

Cover design by GKA Design, London WC2
Printed by CPI, Glasgow

ISBN-10: 1 902984 98 6
ISBN-13: 978 1 902984 98 8

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electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
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90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P OLP.

This revised edition first published 2006

Available in the series:

Latin Prep 1 1 902984 98 6
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Latin Prep 3 Answer Book 1 902984 43 9

Also available:
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Latin Bk 1 Prelims 8pp 15/6/06 9:54 am Page 5

Acknowledgements
I should like to express my very special thanks to Nicholas Oulton for his courteous,
shrewd and ruthless editing of this work; if it fulfils its aim, as I hope it does, this is
chiefly due to him.
I thank also Peter Brown of Trinity College, Oxford who has constantly responded with
such kindness and scholarliness to a veritable bombardment of telephone calls extending
over many weeks.
And I thank Peter and Jackie Fennymore for their continual support, which contributed
greatly to my completing this book. Many thanks, too, to Rupert Fennymore whose
outstanding IT skills averted many a crisis.
I should like to thank Bill Inge and the pupils of Ashfold School for bringing to our
attention a number of typographical errors in the first edition of this book.
I need hardly say that all mistakes and infelicities that remain are entirely my own work.

Author’s preface
The first aim of this book is to introduce beginners to the 1st year Latin CE syllabus. I
have adhered pretty faithfully to the vocabulary and usages required by this syllabus and
that is partly my excuse for the rather unconventional style of some of my stories. In this
context I must beg tolerance from my stricter readers for not being able to use the
alarming verb inquam – not in the syllabus! – when direct speech is involved, as it so
frequently has to be. Instead, I have permitted myself to use a host of other verbs such
as dīcō, clāmō, rogō, respondeō etc and have found, to my surprise and relief, that at
least some of these verbs are used over and over again by Ovid to present direct speech.
So I take refuge in claiming that my little stories, though not cast in any particular metre,
are essentially poetic and are therefore entitled to poetic licence (it’s a good try anyway!)
This new edition differs from the first edition in two material ways. Firstly, the font size
has been increased to make the text easier on the eye. Secondly, a number of exercises
have been added where it was felt that further practice was required. To enable schools
to use both editions alongside each other without too much inconvenience, the exercise
numbers from the first edition have been retained. The following new exercises have
been added or expanded: 1.7; 1.10; 2.9; 2.10; 2.14; 2.15; 3.1; 3.7; 5.5; 5.6 and 7.6. The
result of these changes is that while the page numbering differs significantly between the
two editions, the exercise numbering remains the same.

TLZ
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Contents
Introduction
Why Latin? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Pronunciation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Short vowels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Long vowels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Diphthongs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Consonants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
The false quantity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
And now… into the deep end! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Chapter 1
Salvē! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
A bit about endings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Singular and plural . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
To be or not to be? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
A or the? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
The Roman Empire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Amō = I love: present tense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Verbs like amō . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Translating the present tense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Vocabulary 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Chapter 2
A bit more about nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1st declension nouns: puella . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Stems and endings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
The nominative case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
The vocative case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Subjects and objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Transitive and intransitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Traffic-lights: beware! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Cavē (beware, again!) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Vocabulary 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
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Chapter 3
More about nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
The genitive case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Using apostrophes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
The dative case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
The ablative case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
All the cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
A minor problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
A final word on the 1st declension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2nd declension nouns: dominus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Feeling scholarly? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2nd declension nouns in -er: puer and magister . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
deus, vir, fīlius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Vocabulary 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Chapter 4
Nouns like bellum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Prepositions + the ablative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Adjectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Agreement of adjectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
A word on genders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
A word of warning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Sum + complement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
The imperfect tense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Imperfect of sum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
A little piece on translating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Vocabulary 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Chapter 5
Learning to count: I-X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Prepositions + the accusative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Dative of the possessor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
The perfect tense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Adjectives in -er . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Perfect of sum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Coping with principal parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Using those supines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Vocabulary 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
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Chapter 6
2nd conjugation: moneō . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
More on principal parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Apposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Pronouns in the accusative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Questions in Latin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
3rd conjugation: regō . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
A horrible truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Vocabulary 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Chapter 7
Ordinals: 1st-10th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4th conjugation: audiō . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Vēnī, vīdī, vīcī! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Vocabulary 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Chapter 8
Mixed conjugation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Imperatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
More about sum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Revision of prepositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Adsum and absum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Vocabulary 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Chapter 9
Subordinate clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Adverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Vocabulary 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Chapter 10
Nunc est legendum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Vocabulary 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Vocabularies
Vocabulary: Latin - English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Vocabulary: English - Latin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
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Introduction 1

Introduction
Why Latin?
You have probably heard people say that Latin is useful because it helps us with our
English. The reason for this is that about half the words you meet in English were used
in some form or other by the Romans. The Romans, as I’m sure you know, ruled an
empire which spread over much of Europe (as well as Asia Minor and North Africa).
Their language, Latin, was spoken throughout this large empire but, over the decades
and centuries, it changed. In Italy it gradually evolved into Italian; in Spain it became
Spanish; and in Gaul (i.e. France) it became French. And so, when William the
Conqueror conquered England in 1066, he brought with him his language (i.e. Norman-
French). And it is from this language, Norman-French, that much of our own English
language is derived. For example the word “irate” meaning “angry” comes from the
Latin word īra = anger. The word “spectator” meaning “someone who watches” comes
from the Latin word spectō = “I watch”. The more Latin words you learn, the more you
will realise how much of our English language is in fact taken directly (or indirectly)
from Julius Caesar and his merry men. And all thanks to the Battle of Hastings!
Latin is difficult, certainly, but not absurdly so. I have tried in this
book to supply you with a sound basis for mastering Latin and this
process will continue in Books 2 and 3 of this course. You may think
that in this book I sometimes approach certain features of Latin a
little disrespectfully. I should like to think rather that my approach
embodies the kind of familiarity and jocularity which we often
display with someone we love. Certainly, I love the Latin language
as a language, with all its rules and irregularities: I love everything
about it. Indeed I should not hesitate to say that, even if there were
no Latin literature at all, the language itself is one of the greatest
monuments of human creativity and fully justifies the learning of it.
You may have heard people talking airily about Latin being a dead language. We have
already pointed out that it is in fact very much alive in the languages derived or partially
derived from it. Probably people mean that Latin itself is now simply a written language
and is no longer spoken (except on some formal occasions in universities and the like).
But this approach is misleading since, in the days when Latin was spoken, books were
by our standards extremely rare and books were regularly read aloud. Certainly Latin
falls beautifully upon the ear and one should take every opportunity to read it aloud. It
is utterly a language that should be read aloud, because only in so doing and in doing it
well, can you fully appreciate the beauty of which I have spoken. I suggest then that,
from the start, you read lots of Latin, even simple words, aloud; and try to relish them.
In the course of this book I have occasionally reminded you of this.

I
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2 Latin Prep

Pronunciation
To the Roman ear there was an immensely important difference between a long and a
short vowel. To ignore the quantity (i.e. the length) of a vowel is rather the same as to
play the piano from piano music without worrying too much about “silly little things”
such as whether a note is black or white or whether it has a tail or tails or is tail-less (I
hope you like this word). Incidentally, a lot more is known about the pronunciation of
Latin than you may think.

Short vowels
Very nearly all vowels in this book are assumed to be short unless marked as long
(see below). Occasionally we have marked a vowel as being short, but only if there is a
definite and inescapable tendency to pronounce it incorrectly. Where vowels are marked
short, we do this with a little sign called a breve (e.g. Ù, ˆ, ¯, Ò, œ).
A short Ù is pronounced something like “u” in “hut”. E.g. ad (= to).
A short ˆ is pronounced something like “e” in “neck”. E.g. sed (= but).
A short ¯ is pronounced something like “i” in “hit”. E.g. cibus (= food).
A short Ò is pronounced something like “o” in “lot”. E.g. novem (= nine).
A short œ is pronounced something like “oo” in “hood”. E.g. cum (= with).

Long vowels
All vowels that are long are marked with a sign called a macron (e.g. ā, ē, ī, ō, ū).
A long ā is pronounced something like “ar” in “far”. E.g. ā (= from).
A long ē is pronounced something like “ai” in “bait”. E.g. mē (= me).
A long ī is pronounced something like “ee” in “feet”. E.g. hīc (= here).
A long ō is pronounced something like “oa” in “boar”. E.g. nōs (= we).
A long ū is pronounced something like “oo” in pool; (never the “yu” noise in
“fume”.) E.g. tū (= you).
Long “ē ”s and long “ō ”s are a little more complicated than this, really, but if you follow
these instructions you might only be a semi-tone wrong, if that! And in some words the
Romans could not make up their minds about the letter “i ”. Thus in the words ubi =
“when” and ibi = “there”, the final “i ” is sometimes treated as short, sometimes as long.
Having told you this, we feel no qualms about leaving it unmarked.
A vowel is always long before -ns and -nf, even between words.
Eg. īnsula (= island).
Eg. īn sacrō locō (= in a sacred place).
Always give vowels their full (and correct) value when pronouncing words. For example
regere (= to rule) has three identical short “e” sounds: re-ge-re.

II
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Introduction 3

Diphthongs
When two vowels are pronounced as one syllable, they create a diphthong.
AE is pronounced something like “i” in “tie”. E.g. laetus (= happy).
AU is pronounced something like “ow” in “cow”. E.g. nauta (= sailor).
El is pronounced something like “ay” in “day”. E.g. deinde (= then).
OE is pronounced something like “oy” in “boy”. E.g. Poenus (= Carthaginian).
Beware, for example, of the word poēta (= poet). In this word the ‘oe’ is not a
diphthong; the ‘o’ and the ‘e’ are two separate vowels, giving the word three lovely
syllables in all: po-ē-ta.
EU is a hard one; luckily, not many Latin words use this, though it does occur in Greek
names (e.g. Theseus). Try to pronounce a short e (as in pet) and a short u (as in put) so
close to each other that they produce a single sound. Try this with the word heu, which
rather appropriately means “alas!” Do not make it sound like the name Hugh.

Consonants
Most consonants in Latin are pronounced as they are in English. However, look out for
the following:
C is always hard, as in “cat”. E.g. Caesar begins with a hard “c” noise, not the
soft “s” noise that we tend to use in English.
G is always hard, as in “gun”. E.g. rēgīna (= queen).
Consonantal “i”; the letter “i” is generally a vowel, but it can also be used as the
English letter “y” (in words such as “you”). Hence the Latin word iam (= now)
is pronounced “yum”. In the past it was written with a “j ” (from the German “j”
which is pronounced like our consonantal “y”) and this led to its being
pronounced like our letter “j” (as in “jam”). But this was wrong. (See page 92.)
R is always rolled, using the tip of the tongue (if you are lucky enough to be
able to do this). E.g. portō (= I carry). Note also that vowels before “r ” are
not automatically lengthened as they tend to be in English. Thus the first “o”
in the Latin word portō is short, and should not be “stretched” as in our
English word “porter”.
S is always as “s” in “silly”, never the “z” noise in words such as “busy”.
E.g. quis? (= who?).
V is always as the “w” in “water”. E.g. veniō (= I come).
Y exists only in names that come from Greek, and should be pronounced like a
French “u”. E.g. Hymettus (a mountain near Athens).
CH, PH, TH nearly always come from Greek and should not be pronounced as they are
in English. They are pronounced as very hard Cs, Ps and Ts respectively (i.e. ignoring
the “h”). E.g. Charōn, Philippī and Thēseus.
III
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4 Latin Prep

GN is pronounced NGN as in “hangnail”. E.g. magnus (= big) is pronounced

“mungnoos”.
Finally, note that when you meet a double consonant in Latin, as in puella (= girl), or
terra (= earth), you should linger on the two consonants and try to give each its full value.

The false quantity

As we have said, the length of a vowel is called its quantity. In the old days, if you got a
quantity wrong, you had perpetrated a “false quantity”, and were obliged to bow your
head in shame and to consider yourself the lowest of the low. Nearly all textbooks and
grammars use macrons to mark the long vowels for you, as we do in this book. But the
Romans didn’t use these macrons themselves; they just knew. And when you learn a
word, you should ideally include mastering its quantities as part of your learning. This is
best done by pronouncing each word to yourself aloud as you learn it. For example:
Rōmānus (= Roman). Say its three syllables aloud slowly, Rō-mā-nus, making sure that
you have two nice long vowels followed by one short one. Now this sort of thing is part
of the fun of learning this beautiful language. Indeed false quantites could be most
embarrassing. Pity the poor farmer who cried out to his wife “mea uxor est mala sūs”
which means – I can hardly bring myself to translate it – “my wife is a bad pig.”
(Actually, I believe that pigs are very clean and pleasant animals). History does not
record what followed upon his remark, though I am told that the lady was carrying a
thick broom at the time. What he had meant to say was “meā, uxor, ēst māla sūs” which
means “move, wife, the pig is eating the apples!” You just can’t be too careful.

And now... into the deep end!

When you turn the page you are
going to be thrown, fully-clothed, into
the deep end. But fear not, everything
will very soon be explained. It is like
one of those films which begin right
in the middle of the story, with all
sorts of people you don’t know and
all sorts of mysterious things
happening, and then suddenly you are
taken back to the beginning and you
start to understand what it is all about.
The opening scenes give you a feel
for the whole thing, as a sort of
“taster”, before you settle down to
work out who is who and what is
what. So, here we go!

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Chapter 1 5

Chapter 1
Salvē!
Welcome! Assuming that you are normal (like me?), you will have skipped the
Introduction, but I suggest that you go back to it now, particularly to the bit about
pronunciation. You may also like to have a little peep at the vocabulary below. Then
read aloud and see if you can make sense of the following:

Sulpicia fēmina est. Aulus agricola est. egÒ Aulus sum.

egÒ Sulpicia sum.
fēmina sum. agricola sum.

egÒ Quīntus sum.

poēta sum.

“Salvē, Sulpicia. ubi est Mārcus?”

“Mārcus hīc est. etiam Cassia hīc est. Cassia puella est.”
“quis est Quīntus?”
“Quīntus poēta est.”
“Cassia, ubi sunt Aulus et Sulpicia?”
“Aulus et Sulpicia hīc sunt.”
Claudia et Cassia puellae sunt. Rōmānae puellae sunt.
“salvē. nōs puellae sumus.”
etiam Laelia puella Rōmāna est.
“salvē. puella Rōmāna sum.”
Gnaeus Rōmānus est. Sextus Rōmānus est.
Gnaeus et Sextus agricolae nōn sunt. nautae sunt.
“salvē. nōs nautae sumus.”
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6 Latin Prep

Vocabulary sunt = (they) are

salvē = greetings, hello hīc = here
agricola = farmer etiam = also, even
fēmina = woman quis? = who?
puella = girl ubi? = where?
poēta = poet et = and
nauta = sailor ego = I
Rōmānus = Roman tū = you (singular)
sum = I am nōs = we
est = (he, she or it) is vōs = you (plural)
sumus = we are nōn = not

A bit about endings…

You will have noticed (no doubt) that some Latin names end in -a and others end in -us.
The ones in -a refer to females (e.g. Claudia, Sulpicia, Cassia and Laelia), the ones in
-us (Aulus, Mārcus, Sextus, Gnaeus and Quīntus) to males. In the same way a female
Roman was Rōmāna and a male Roman was Rōmānus. This business of Latin words
changing their endings is a vital part of the language, so we need to get used to it right
from the start.

Mārcus Rōmānus est. Sulpicia Rōmāna est.

Singular and plural

Nouns in Latin, just as in English, can be either singular or plural. In English we
generally (but not always) make a noun plural by adding “s”. In Latin it is rather more
complicated than this, but if the noun ends in -a (e.g. agricola or puella), it changes to
-ae in the plural.

Singular Plural
puella = the girl puellae = the girls
agricola = the farmer agricolae = the farmers

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