So far in my exercises, the speaker “I” have been male. So “I am happy” is aeger sum.
Does the adjective change if the speaker is female?
A man says, “aeger sum.”
A woman says, “aegra sum.” ???
That’s right. An adjective agrees in case, number and gender with what it describes.
Magistra
Of course! A similar comparison in English would be that women rarely say “I am handsome” and men even more rarely say “I am pretty.” Usually, that is…
Yes, an adjective agrees with his subject in case, gender, number.
In English it’s diffucult to see that.
It’s easier in French;
he is happy = il est heureux.
she is happy = elle est heureuse.
Also in Latin;
I am happy = laetus sum (masculinum)
I am happy = laeta sum (femininum)
You see, the Latin tells us a little more than the English!
We all should talk Latin at home, it woulsd be easier! 
Aeger = ill
laetus / alacer = happy.
The adjective also agrees when it is an apposition ect.
It’s not only when it’s a predicate.
For exemple;
magister laetus
magistra laeta.
[quote author=Moerus link=board=3;threadid=366;start=0#2774 date=1060078184]
You see, the Latin tells us a little more than the English!
We all should talk Latin at home, it woulsd be easier!
[/quote]
Something tells me that the cat wouldn’t listen any better in Latin than he does in English…
But you’re right, it is a lot easier to be more precise in Latin than in English.
Kilmeny
I learnd my dog some things in Latin and he obeys!
Like sede, veni, noli latrare etc.
Just for fun, we should all try this!
[quote author=Moerus link=board=3;threadid=366;start=0#2790 date=1060091415]
I learnd my dog some things in Latin and he obeys!
[/quote]
hah awesome ;D
Yes, I was thinking along the same lines which is how I came up with this question. I probably missed the section where BLD mentions this, or perhaps he mentions this in the future.
In English, in 3rd person singular, you still get an idea of whether the person being refered to is male or female with “he” and “she”.
Interestingly enough, in Chinese, the pronoun for “he” and “she” are exactly the same, so you don’t know the gender of the person being referred to.
Aeger = ill
laetus / alacer = happy.
Oops. I somehow got into this rut last night (it was almost 1AM and my brain was shutting down!) thinking that aeger was the word for happy.
We all should talk Latin at home, it woulsd be easier! >
I was walking through a park on Sunday where I saw some dogs and I thought about how neat it would be to have a dog and train it to respond to commands in Latin. Do you think that would be too confusing for the dog?
[quote author=Moerus link=board=3;threadid=366;start=0#2790 date=1060091415]
I learnd my dog some things in Latin and he obeys!
Like sede, veni, noli latrare etc.
[/quote]
Cool! 
And your dog obeys? Does he still respond to English commands?
he stil responds to dutch commands, we speak dutch here. Thats why i make as many faults in my english!
I like your “faults.” They are often not so much wrong as Latinized
I wonder if adjective agreement would confuse dogs?
You would say is the male dog: pulcher es!
You would say to the female dog: pulchra es!
An interesting concept. I would imagine that they only are noticing “pulcher es” as basic sound patterns: harsh-vowel-harsh-vowel-liquid vowel-liquid. Something like that…
Interestingly enough, in Chinese, the pronoun for “he” and “she” are exactly the same, so you don’t know the gender of the person being referred to.
Same in Indonesian. Dia serves for he or she. You can only refer to brother or sister with a clumsy circumlocution. Siblings are normally differentiated by age: kakak older sibling, adik younger sibling.
[quote author=bingley link=board=3;threadid=366;start=0#2890 date=1060129267]
Same in Indonesian. Dia serves for he or she. You can only refer to brother or sister with a clumsy circumlocution. Siblings are normally differentiated by age: kakak older sibling, adik younger sibling. [/quote]
It sounds like Indonesian is similar to Chinese in many respects. The Chinese have specific words to refer to older/younger sibblings/cousins/aunts/uncles/etc on your mother’s/father’s side. It gets really complicated, but there is less ambiguity about how you’re related to someone.
In Chinese, you use the same adjective for male or female, no such thing as gender agreement. (Gotta stay on topic ). Is it similar in Indonesian?
No gender agreement to worry about, no cases, no tenses, no subjunctive or optative. Bliss. ;D
Same in Indonesian. Dia serves for he or she. You can only refer to brother or sister with a clumsy circumlocution. Siblings are normally differentiated by age: kakak older sibling, adik younger sibling.
In Latin we have something like that too with names of animals, when there is only one word (with one grammatical gender) for indicating the female and the male.
exemple;
aquila is always a femininum, but it’s also used to indicate a male. So when you really want to make the difference, tyou can say; aquila femina or aquila mas.
bos mas or bos femina (but here we usually use vacca).
The words mas and femina are appositions here.
Sometimes there are two words, one for each gender:
gallus -gallina …
[quote author=bingley link=board=3;threadid=366;start=15#2896 date=1060138540]
No gender agreement to worry about, no cases, no tenses, no subjunctive or optative. Bliss. ;D
[/quote]
Is that even a language?
How refers-one to past events? ???
You just say when it happened. No change in the verb.
Without a context you often don’t know whether an event is past present or future.
Bom (a bomb) diledakkan (passive of the transitive verb meledakkan to explode something) di (in) Jakarta.
If I feel it necessary to mention it was a past event:
Tadi/Kemarin Bom diledakkan di Jakarta (earlier today/yesterday)
Roughly equivalent of the English present perfect:
Bom baru/pernah diledakkan di Jakarta. (has just/has ever)
Saya is I, me, my depending on word order in the sentence.
That is really strange yet rather awesome