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Quis ut Deus
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Joined: Sat Jan 17, 2009 8:46 pm

Questions

Post by Quis ut Deus »

Salvete!

I'm a first time poster. I'm studying alone, working out of Wheelock, D'Ooge, and Cambridge Latin.

I feel like I'm making good progress (I can get through a lot of the Vulgate, D'Ooge's stories, and some of Wheelock's quotes, but I'm not ready for Caesar or Cicero!), but I have several questions:

1. The difference between "et" and "que" at the end of a word. Are they interchangeable? Or are there certain times to use "que?"
2. Deponent verbs--they have a passive form but are active in nature? Do they take objects (e.g. infinitives)?

My third question relates to methods to learn Latin: specifically memorizing noun and adjective declensions. Do any of you have any special techniques or methods?

Gratias vobis ago!

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thesaurus
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Re: Questions

Post by thesaurus »

Salve, Quis ut Deus, ac gratus adventus tuus!

1. et and que can be very similar in usage. However, "que" is used to conjoin pairs of things, whether nouns or semantic units. As you know, it is put on the end of the word that it would precede in English. So you'd have "terra mareque" for "land and sea," and "feles canisque" for "cat and dog." Sometimes you'll see que join together parallel phrases, but you still just need to think of it as "and."
2. Deponent verbs are in fact passive in form and active in nature. They are one of the more confusing points for beginning Latin learners. Why are they this way? , but there's no need to worry about it. If you know your passive verb endings and whether you're looking at deponent verb, then you're fine. Deponent verbs do take objects or all kinds, and they are just like regular verbs. For example, "arbitror te bonum esse" means "I think you are good." The only difference is that you can't make a deponent verb passive in meaning, by giving it active endings, for example. But all you need to know is that this isn't a problem because deponent verbs are the kind that you don't use in the passive in English anyways.

Keep up the good work. If you're reading the Vulgate you could be reading Caesar before you know it.
Horae quidem cedunt et dies et menses et anni, nec praeteritum tempus umquam revertitur nec quid sequatur sciri potest. Quod cuique temporis ad vivendum datur, eo debet esse contentus. --Cicero, De Senectute

Quis ut Deus
Textkit Member
Posts: 166
Joined: Sat Jan 17, 2009 8:46 pm

Re: Questions

Post by Quis ut Deus »

Thesaure, gratias tibi ago.

I'm hard at work memorizing my declensions and conjugations.

Thanks for the info on 'et' and 'que'.

I'm working on my passive verbs, and I now get the deponent verbs.

So, I'll be bugging soon with questions on the subjunctive.

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