Lesson video

- [Speaking Latin] It's me, Mr. Ferber, and you're doing Latin on Oak National Academy, and this is module number five, lesson number one.

And we're going to be looking not at the present tense, but at the past tenses, that's right, you heard me correctly.

Not just the one past tense, two of them.

Now I'm also going to add before we start learning that if you followed the Oak National Academy Latin course from last April through to over the summer, and you want to continue your Latin learning, then this is the module to start.

So I can't wait to carry on teaching you guys Latin as well.

But as I'll say, I'll just repeat myself, It's going to be the past tenses, there's two of them, What are they going to be? Let's find out.

The perfect and imperfect tenses.

[Speaking Latin] We already said hello, didn't we? Our learning objectives are, can I define and recognise the perfect and imperfect tenses? Can I remember all 6 person endings of both tenses? And can I translate verbs in both tenses in full sentences from Latin to English? Before we get onto that, you will need to make sure that you have those things, in order to get the most out of this lesson.

Well done to those of you, including me, well done me, who've got a pen and paper, let's actually get on with some teaching and learning.

Now, to look at these tenses, in order to learn about these tenses, I'm going to have to tell you about my weekend, all right? And the first thing that happened, oh my, the weekend I had! The weekend I had.

The first thing that happened on a Friday evening was that I decided to go to my mother's house, didn't I? And as you can see, this is me, all right? And the Latin sentence to describe that was, magister ad villam ambulabat, sed, ambula-bat, ambula-bat.

Look at that ending, what's that? Okay, let's have a look.

Now it didn't happen now, so I'm going to think, well, the teacher, it's not going to be walks.

What do we think? What do we think? Okay.

Walked, not bad.

I mean, maybe it's right, maybe it's wrong, let's find out.

So the teacher walks to the house, but what's going to happen? Let's find out.

Oh no! Sed de lacuna lapsavit.

Lapsavit, lapsavit.

Now what's this V doing there? Okay, now, the key question here though.

Lapso is a verb meaning I trip or I fall, all right? Now, the key thing to look at here is did I fall down that hole? A lacuna is a hole? Did I fall down the hole? Nodding heads, shaking heads.

Nodding heads, I did fall down the hole, didn't I? Did I get to my mother's house? Nodding heads, shaking heads.

Shaking heads, I didn't, did I? Didn't make it.

How are we going to now? I did fall down.

So therefore I'm going to translate this one as, but he tripped down the hole.

Tripped.

How would I change my translation, we thought that meant walked.

How might we change that? Given that, it can't mean walks, because then it means it would have a V there.

Do we see? The V is the ed bit, the walk, the tripped.

How are we going to change our translation based on that ba there, what do you think? Okay, fantastic.

Really well done, if you answered that means was walking.

So this ba means was something-ing or were something-ing This V means if someone something-ed.

So, tripped, was walking.

Bear that in mind, because that was Friday night, Saturday, I thought, you know what? I'm going to go to the zoo.

Magister crocodilam.

See if we that crocodile there.

Spectabat, spec-ta-bat, spec-ta-bat.

What does that ba mean? Was it watched? Of course it wasn't.

The teacher was watching the crocodile.

What do we think's going to happen? Oh no! Sed crocodila magistrum petivit.

Pe-ti-vit, pe-ti-vit.

Do you see that V? Let's go for attack for [Speaking Latin] But the crocodile, he whats? What's attacking? It would be the crocodile, tell me, tell me? Very nice, really lean onto that last sound there.

Attack-ed, good.

Attacked the teacher.

Okay, one last one.

And then Monday morning, my Sunday I was just recovering.

Monday morning, Magister ad ludum ambulabat.

Running through, the teacher was walking to school, but, oh what happened, there's no hole in the ground but I libros non, or he libros non portavit, but he did not carry, he carried not, his libros, his books.

What just happened? Well, let's have a little look.

So two past tenses in Latin, you are forbidden forever, if any teacher in Latin ever asks you, "What tense is this verb?" And you say the past tense, no! Because there's two past tenses, you must be more specific.

In fact, the longer you do Latin you'll find out there's more than two, but for now there's two past tenses.

And the first one is the perfect tense, which is as we can see used for completed action in the past, we recognise this in Latin, with this V near the end, and to translate it in English, we put an ed on the end, usually on the end of our verb.

For example, salutavit is greet-ed.

When I say V, you say ed.

V ed, V ed.

Not only that, but there's also something to do with the person endings that is important for the perfect tense.

Now before we look at this, I need to clarify how we're going to be doing person endings in Latin, on these lessons for Oak National Academy.

And the way I like to do them is through actions.

So don't worry about these bits over here, all right? We're just going to look at English for now.

You should be, remember, you should be familiar, from the present tense stuff that you would have done either in school or with me, that you can divide verbs up in English and Latin into six person endings, six people who can be doing something.

And the way to remember them is as follows, it goes like this.

I, you, he or she, we, you plural, they, all right? Do you want me to do one more? Then you can do one.

Let's have a go.

I, you, he or she, we, you plural, they.

Do we see how the second three are the plurals of the first three? So the plural of I is we.

Plural of you singular, you plural, okay? So just with me, run me through that in English, after one, two, just in English.

I, you, he or she, we, you plural, they.

Okay, lets have a look at Latin now.

I will repeat again.

You're going to have a V near the end for the perfect tense, but it's not just as simple as that, because the thing that comes after the V is also different to what you're used to.

And the thing that comes after V, it's not just [Speaking Latin] It's going to be different, and it's going to be these six endings here.

Let's just read them through.

I, isti, it, imus, istis, erunt.

Now my next question to you, why have I put some of these things in bold here? Why are some of these bits in bold? Have a look.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, you got it, didn't you? So do we see the bits in bold are the parts, what's quite interesting about the perfect tense, with the exception of the i form over here, all these other bits are, they look like the present sense, but you just add a bit, s becomes isti, t becomes it most becomes it, mus becomes imus, tis becomes istis, not itis, and nt becomes erunt, do not confuse isti, which is you singular did something, and istis, which is you plural did something.

There's some other easy bits you can remember, all right? My students love pointing out to me that i, or i, means I, doesn't it? I can't make it more simple than that.

Similarly, it means it for goodness sake, come on, it's right there in front of you.

We're going to run through these six person endings, We're going to do loads of practise on how to translate these in a second.

But for now I need to remember these six sounds and also what order they're going to go in.

I'm going to run it through once.

Then we're going to do one together and then it's going to be you on your own.

And I won't be putting any gaps in the middle, I want to keep that beat.

It's just me, this one's just me.

So finger in the air, one, two, three, a bit slower, finger in the air, and, i, isti, it, imus, istis, erunt.

Now, together.

After I said I wouldn't stop, but I am, after, three, two, one.

Here we go, and, i, isti, it, with me, imus, istis, erunt.

One more time like that, i, isti, it, good, imus, istis, erunt.

Completely on your own.

Yeah, good.

Lovely.

Remember that.

Because one more thing we need to look at and that is this other tense.

Did I get to my mother's house? No, because I was walking there.

And do you remember that was ambulabat If you see a ba near the end, you think was or were something-ing in Latin.

When I say ba, you say was or were, ba, was or were, ba, was or were.

When I say V, you say ed, V, ed, V, ed, okay.

An example with saluto.

Saluto is salutabat, was greeting.

Are there going to be different endings for this one, Mr. Ferber? Well, the answer to that is, I'm going to get rid of me, is no! Look at that, what a delight, okay? Because actually look with the exception of the first person, I was something-ing which is bam, all right, all the rest of them actually have the same, the person ending, the very bit on the end, is exactly the same as the present tense.

So we know bas the S on the end, oh, you're doing it, okay.

All that changes with the exception of this first one is that we're just putting a ba in there which means was or were.

Okay, let's practise that like this.

When I say V, you say ed, V, [Knocking] V [Knocking] When I say ba, you say was or were, ba, [Knocking] ba, [Knocking] V [Knocking] V [Knocking] ba, [Knocking] ba, [Knocking] i, isti, it, imus, istis, erunt, your turn.

[Knocking] And bam, bas, bat, bamus, batis, bant, your turn! [Knocking] V [Knocking] V [Knocking] Ba [Knocking] Ba [Knocking] When I say ba, you say, [Knocking] when I say V, you say ed.

Okay, let's do some practise translations of these verbs individually.

So, I'm going to do the first one and I don't want any help.

Do we see we've got here, cla-ma-vi, cla-ma-vi.

Now the way we translate sentences individually, when you've just got that sentence there, is it's going to be three parts and we do not go left to right, we in fact go right to left.

We do person tense, Stem, blue bit, bit pink, green bit.

Who did it? When did the verb happen? What was the verb? Alright, now I'm going to do the first one.

I don't want any help.

I want to see if I can get it right on my own.

So I don't start with clama, I start with i, okay, so I'm going to run through i ending, that's going to be i, istis, i is I, I means I, right, great, so I know that i is I, That's the I done, step one, tick.

Next up.

I have a look at the V over there now.

V oh my goodness, that's easy, come on, V.

When I say V you say ed, it's ed, isn't it.

So I'm going to leave a little bit of space here, because it's going to be your action there.

I'm going to leave a gap when I go ed there, tick.

And then I switched to green for, if you've got different coloured pens, that'd be amazing.

really good to do it in this way, actually, if you don't, don't worry, I'm just doing it like this to make it easier for you to understand what the different parts of the verb are.

And then I look at clama and I think, well, clama, that's to do with, exclaim something, exclamation mark to do with making noise, bit of shouting.

So it's going to be shouts in the middle.

And then I review it and I go to step three.

And the clama part's done, I look at it.

I think, I shouted, does that make sense? Yeah, it does.

Now, have I finished? Nodding heads, shaking heads, shaking heads, here's your little clue why I haven't finished there, look because you've got to make sure you put that full stop there as well this is a full sentence, you've got a subject and a verb, so therefore it needs a full stop on the end.

Okay, so let's have a little look.

I'm now going to do another one, but this time I'm going to ask a bit of help from you.

So the first thing we do is nodding heads or shaking heads.

Do I start nodding heads or shaking hands? Do I start with specta? Nodding heads or shaking heads? It's going to be shaking heads.

Do I start with S there for spectabas? Do I start with S? Yes I do.

Nodding heads.

Now with me, starting with bam, finger in the air, how does bam go? Goes three, four, bam, bas, but oh, that was it, bas.

What's that one going to be? Who's doing it if it's that one that is, tell me? Not I, but good.

Singular or plural? You plural, Good.

So I want you.

Singular, caught you out, caught you out there.

Singular there, step one is done.

Now this next bit piece of cake, easy, where? And I say, ba, you say, ba, ba, was or were, good, now you singular was, or you singular were.

What makes sense in English? It's going to be you singular were.

Great, ba is done, step two done.

Now, can you mime to me, what does specta mean? So just show me an action, remind me what specta means in three, two, and go.

Yeah, good, so it's going to be sort of like that or something, isn't it? Specta going to be all you might do.

That's normally what you, I wear glasses normally as well.

So Specta is to do with watching.

You were, that's called watch there.

Fine, now.

Finished? Nodding heads, shaking heads.

Are we finished? Shaking heads.

Does this make sense? You were watch.

What do we need to add there? You were watch-ing, lovely.

Finished? Nodding heads, shaking heads? Shaking heads still.

What's still missing, come on, if I said it once I said it, a thousand times, you are watching, full stop.

Okay.

Let's see if that went in, you're going to have a go.

We're going to try and do some together.

Spectavimus, what do we do first? Do we start with specta, no we start with imus.

Of the six people who is doing imus? Three, two, one.

Let's run it through, i, isti, it, imus, it's we.

Now when I say V, you say, V, V, ed, and mime to me, we know what specta is, which of these two is it? After three, two, and, watch.

Is it going to be "Oh, Mr. Ferber, I think spectavimus means watched we?" What's the correct translation? How are you going to put that together? Tell your screen, tell me? Lovely.

We watched.

You do another one.

Portabatis.

Do we start with porta? No, we start with tis.

Of the 6 person endings who is doing tis? Let's run it through and bam bas bat.

So it's going to be like this, bam bas bat, bamus, ba, oh! Ba-tis, you plural.

Now, when I say ba, you say, ba, ba, was or were, and mime porta for me, what's porta mean of these two? So what's porta mean? Good, so if something is portable, then you're able to carry it.

So whole thing together, carry were you, what's it going to be, what's that mean? Yep, great.

You were carrying.

Now, ambulavistis.

This one you're not going to have any help, it's just me down here on my own.

That's how it'll look.

So, first of all, we look at istis, run it through with me with the finger after one, two, three, and, i, isti, it, imus, istis, erunt, it's that one.

Who's doing that? Tell me after three, two, and, great.

Singular or plural? One more time, it's going to be, yeah, you plural, cool.

Now when I say, easy bit, but when I say V, you say, V, V, ed, and can you mind to me what ambula, mime it to me, what's ambula, what verb's that from? If you amble, what are you doing? Okay, great.

It's going to be, [Whistling] Not I whistle, it'll be, I can't do it sat in a chair, but it's walking, isn't it? So we've got, now put the whole thing together.

Walked you plural.

It was going to be what's in English.

You say you walked and we're done, okay.

Now ambulavistis means you walked, what's ambulavisti mean? You have five seconds.

Okay let's have a look, so ambulavistis, we know that's you plural walked.

Ambulavisti is i, isti.

I, you singular.

You singular walks.

If ambulavistis means you plural walked, what does ambulatis mean? The answer in three, two, and, ambulatis this is no V, so therefore there's no -ed required, this is present tense, remember that? Remember the present? This is just you walk.

If there's not a V don't put an -ed in, okay.

Spectaverunt, off you go on your own.

Okay, switching to a different colour pencil, press pause if you need to, if you still need some more time, which you will do if you didn't press pause when I asked you to.

Everyone else switching to a different colour pen so we can have a look at correcting your answers there.

Great, let's just talk it through, i, isti, it was just erunt, they, when I say V, you say -ed, and specta is watching so, they watched.

Now it's time for you to do even more of those completely on your own, you don't need me anymore, off you go.

Pressing pause here.

Okay, now, switching to different colour pens so we can see how we did.

So pressing pause here again now.

Really well done on those, it's not easy, right? Press pause here and see how we did.

You will have done absolutely fine.

If you made sure you followed those steps.

When I say ba, okay, off you go.

Right, next up, we're going to see how these sentences look in full sentences.

Let's put me in the right place.

So as usual you can say it with me if you want to, it's my favourite phrase, as usual, I'm going to do the first one.

And I don't, I just don't want any help, you understand? This always happens.

Okay, so.

Let's switch that pen over, a nice blue.

First thing that's going to happen is, Let's have a look at these steps, step one is I translate each word and I only focus, what I mean by that is you only focus on the first sort of two thirds.

You don't look at the end, don't worry about the endings yet.

We'll do endings all in good time.

So an amica is someone I feel amicable about my amigo, amica is going to be a friend.

I apologise for my handwriting.

Matrem would be something to do with maternal, it's from mate, I knows that's mother.

And then when you do verbs, you want to leave a lot of, I told you it's a verb, do a lot of space either side, because you don't know if it's going to be was or -ed something.

But I don't worry about that ending yet, we just need to worry about this first bit, which is expecta, which is to do with waiting.

So I'm going to write wait here, leave a lot of room either side.

That is step one done.

Now, my step two is I find my verb, I've already done that.

I know that the verb is exspectabat, And then I look at that person ending, I look at that tense.

Bam, bass, bat, is I, you, she.

So the friends, female friends can be she, I'm going to just do a little arrow here so you can see where I'm writing.

She down there.

Now that's the T done.

And when ba, that ba there, when I say ba, you say was or were.

So it's going to be she was, so I've checked my person there and I'm checking my tense.

It's a really badly written W, she was waiting.

And then that's, I know this is imperfect tense here.

And for some reason I've written something up here, which I need to just get rid of, it's very sloppy work, Mr. Ferber.

I know, I'm sorry.

Okay, back to the pen.

Right, that is step two done.

Now I go, verb is done, we don't have to worry about that.

We go and look for our normative and accusative, what letter do singular accusatives end in, M.

What letter do singular accusatives end in, M, all right? So I know that that's matrem is going to be an accusative with my objects.

You've seen in a verb, A is a normative ending, like puella, anything like that.

Nom, acc, my order for translation is going to be nom verb acc, it's going to be this word, this word, this word, friend was waiting, mother, "Mr. Ferber, I finished, I think the answer his friend was waiting mother." How are we going to make that make sense? We need to add some extra words in, but don't just add any words you want, add the in, and I should have written wait for over here, because wait changes in English when it takes an object.

So the whole thing together will be the friend, have patience with me and my handwriting.

Friend, now, tenses, what some students do now, is they're so obsessed with writing a sentence out, they forget all this work they did.

She was waiting, we amended this didn't we? The friend, do we need the sheet? No, we don't because we know who's doing the waiting, so the friend was waiting for the mother.

Finished, am I finished? No, What do I need to put? Yeah, full stop in there, what's the point of doing all that difficult Latin if you don't actually put a full stop on? How do I get rid of this? Okay, let's have a look.

Now, while you do one on your own, We're going to do two examples of where someone gets something wrong and you're going to tell me what they got wrong.

So here we have urbem intravisti, this student has translated this as you were entering the city, bem city, like urban.

What's wrong with that answer, I'll give you 10 seconds, if you figure out what's wrong with it, then I'd like you to tell me what's right with it.

What actually did the student get right? That other students might not have done.

Okay, so 10 seconds, what's wrong with that answer there, Go.

And we're there.

I would have been delighted to see that most of you would have figured out that the big problem here is this thing here, all right? What did they get right? Let's just do that first, actually.

Isti, i, isti, it.

I, you.

So actually this you singular bit, great! Isn't that nice? However, when I say V, so this isti bit, when I say V, you say what? I say V, you say, ed, is there an ed here, No.

So we don't want a was, it's going to be you singular entered and then city is also correct, okay? Did we get that? Nodding shaking heads? Yes, we did, V, ed.

Now however, keep your eye on, because we're going to do another one.

And could you please tell me what is wrong with this one? 10 seconds, amicam is your clue, exspectabat, 10 seconds.

Two, one, let's have a look.

Switching to that pen.

Okay, right.

What does the student get right? Well, what they got right was amica is friend and expectabat is was wasting, his tense is correct, isn't it? Well done on that tense, very nice, now.

So that means step one is fine, step two is fine.

But it's this one, step three caused some issues, do we see? Because, what case, so normative or accusative, is amicam, what letter do singular accusatives end in, M.

So we know that's in fact accusative.

So it must be receiving the waiting.

Who's doing it? Then you might then think it was going to be, well, the friend was being waited for? Well, hold on.

Who's doing the waiting? Exspectabat, run it through for me, starting with bat, Three, two, one.

It's going to be bam, bas, bat.

I, you, she, let's go for she.

So actually it's going to be she, you see this, she was waiting for the friend, right? So what I'll do here is get rid of that.

She was waiting for the friend.

Finished? No! What's going to go on the end? Come on, goodness sake.

Right, okay.

I believe it's time for you to do one of these on your own.

Bear all that we've done the practise in mind.

What do we think? Amicam, there's your clue there, exspectavimus means.

I'll give you two minutes to do this, pressing pause to do so in two, one, and pause.

Okay, did we get it? Different colour pen at the ready, answers coming up, pausing again if you need to to correct your answers, that's your answer there.

Okay, let's talk it through.

So the key thing to look at here is the amicam is accusative again, all right? So it's not going to be that you might think it might be the friend waited for us or just the friend waited.

Actually we know we go here first.

Don't we, we waited for the friend.

The main thing is there's going to be one of these where you've got the accusative first, at least one of the sentences we're going to do, so keep your eye out.

If you didn't get it right, then you'll be okay, that's fine.

Do give yourself a big tick still, if you got the fact that this V is ed, if you translated waited, then that means you've got the main thing of this lesson, but use this as an opportunity if you've got it wrong, to spot the first words which are accusative in the sentence and make sure you don't make that mistake again.

If you do get it right, you're going to have a great day.

Here's some more examples for you, pressing pause to do these six sentences in two, one, and pause.

Don't forget the challenge.

You'll see that in a sec.

Okay, now, pressing pause and pick that challenge.

Okay, now, different colour pen or pencil, let's see how we did.

Pressing pause to mark your answers.

After that, I'll talk you through some trickier stuff.

Okay, let's just talk through some things.

So here we have two sentences where you've got an accusative first.

So this is you, istis, here is the istis, you, and this istis, you greeted the friend, and down here, I mean the city isn't going to be doing any entering anyway, So this one the sort of sense leans towards the idea that your subject is going to be in the verb.

Now for these istis's and isti's, If you've just written you, you still get the tick, or the marks, if you, you know, there are no marks, but you still get it right, if you wrote you, but I really want full expectations for grammatical understanding, So please do add in a different colour pen, but this one is you plural.

If you didn't write the plural or singular, and that this one is you singular.

It's still right, but I just need full accuracy.

Telling me whether it's singular or plural, no ambiguity whatsoever.

Here's your answers for the challenge, pressing pause if you did complete this.

And then last of all, once you've marked and corrected your answers and complete that exit quiz, you're going to be absolutely fine.

You're going to get full marks across the board.

Other than that, here's the copyright info for today's lesson and all that's left is for one final iteration of i, isti, it, and when I say V, you say ed, I say V, you say ed, V, ed, V, When I say ba, you say ba, was or were, ba, i, isti, it, imus, istis, erunt, with me, and bam, bas, bat, bamus, batis, bant.

Vale!.