North and Hillard's Latin Composition preliminary exercices

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Artemidoros
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North and Hillard's Latin Composition preliminary exercices

Post by Artemidoros »

Hello to all,
I downloaded North and Hillard's Latin Composition book and I began doing the preliminary exercices. I realized later that there is no key for those exercices (or I am too dumb to find it). Could someone help me please? This is my first attempt to translate into Latin. :oops:

Exercice A

1. Ager bono rege imperatus erat.
2. Miles sagitta interfectus erat.
3. Puer avis lapide interfecit.
4. Romanus dux Hannibale fusus erat.
5. Miles agricolam gladio interfecit.
6. Hoste victi eramus.
7. Moenia civibus defensa erant.
8. Urbs nostra Romulo aedificata est.
9. Romani urbem moene muniverunt.
10. Gallia Britannia a mare divisa est.
11. Altum moene castram defendit.
12. Amicibus amatus sumus et illes amamus.
13. Hoste non victi erimus.
14. Castra longe moene defensa est.
15. Cives urbem defenderunt.
16. Cives civibus defensi sunt.
17. Castram cepimus.
18. Castra nobis capta erant.
19. Pueri docent.
20. Pueri libris docti sunt.

Thanks a lot!

Ulpianus
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Post by Ulpianus »

I think there is a key, but you need to subscribe to the email newsletter to download it. You then go to the subscribers' area, enter your email address and there it is.

Artemidoros
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Key

Post by Artemidoros »

I downloaded the key as well, but preliminary exercices do not appear there.

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benissimus
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Re: North and Hillard's Latin Composition preliminary exerci

Post by benissimus »

Only the brave try their hand at prose comp... 8)
Most of your mistakes were based on grammatical concepts or words that you may be sketchy on or have forgotten. You may want to review something if you see you are consistently having problems with it. One of the most important things in writing (or reading) Latin though is just to have a cautious eye. It is easy to assume the meaning of a sentence before you have seen all the words, and this can lead to the overlooking of subjects and objects and other things.


Exercice A

1. Ager bono rege imperatus erat.
Ager specifically refers to a farm or field, a plot of land. For land in the broader sense, you could use terra. Imperare is more along the lines of "control/command", for ruling land I suggest rego, regere, rexi, rectum. Imperatus erat is pluperfect passive, for perfect passive just say imperatus est. You also need the preposition a with personal agents.
2. Miles sagitta interfectus erat.
Again, interfectus est is the correct tense.
3. Puer avis lapide interfecit.
Avis must be in the accusative case here.
4. Romanus dux Hannibale fusus erat.
Fusus means "poured". I think victus or superatus would make more sense ;)
5. Miles agricolam gladio interfecit.
correct
6. Hoste victi eramus.
I think they mean for you to use the plural hostibus here, since it is THE enemy and not AN enemy. You also need the preposition ab because the enemy is a person. You have pluperfect victi eramus when it should simply be perfect victi sumus.
7. Moenia civibus defensa erant.
That tense again! Change erant to sunt. Cives are people, so they require ab when they are used as ablatives of agent.
8. Urbs nostra Romulo aedificata est.
a Romulo
9. Romani urbem moene muniverunt.
Moenia is rarely in the singular. Use munus (moerus) if you desire the singular.
10. Gallia Britannia a mare divisa est.
Good, but mare is a pure I-stem so the ablative ends in -I = a mari.
11. Altum moene castram defendit.
Don't use moene.
12. Amicibus amatus sumus et illes amamus.
Amicus is first declension, not third. Amatus must be plural. Illes should be illos.
13. Hoste non victi erimus.
Correct, but it probably means for you to use the plural hostibus and you need the ab because you are speaking of personal agents.
14. Castra longe moene defensa est.
Longus is a first/second declension adjective and the ablative ends in -O, not -E (longe is the adverb form). Don't use moene.
15. Cives urbem defenderunt.
correct
16. Cives civibus defensi sunt.
Cities is urbes.
17. Castram cepimus.
correct
18. Castra nobis capta erant.
A nobis capta est.
19. Pueri docent.
Pueri should be in the accusative.
20. Pueri libris docti sunt.
correct
flebile nescio quid queritur lyra, flebile lingua murmurat exanimis, respondent flebile ripae

Fingers
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Post by Fingers »

It's a silly question but, how many chapters minimum of Wheelock should one have gone through before trying the preliminary exercises in North and Hillard's Latin Composition? I'm at 10 and most of them look too hard.

~Fingers~

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benissimus
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Post by benissimus »

I would highly recommend you finish Wheelock before trying prose comp, since it assumes you know all the foundation stuff and will not flow smoothly with the sequence of units in Wheelock. The major impediment is that you need to know all your tenses, both active and passive voice, and the subjunctives along with their constructions. All 4 conjugations and at least the first 3 declensions are absolutely vital as well, though you really should know all the declensions for the most common idiomatically diverse words are in those last two. All of these factors make it impossible to do N&H concurrently with Wheelock, unless you skip around for sentences you can do or you go through Wheelock out of sequence.
flebile nescio quid queritur lyra, flebile lingua murmurat exanimis, respondent flebile ripae

Fingers
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Post by Fingers »

Alright, you've convinced me. I shan't go fiddling foolishly with many other books before finishing Wheelock. The workbook should be here in a few days; maybe then I won't be so antsy. ;)

Artemidoros
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Ooops

Post by Artemidoros »

Thank you a lot for all your corrections, Benissimus. I think I will print them and study them carefully. I had study Latin a lot time ago, but I guess I should check my grammar again... :oops:

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