Lesson video

This is the translation lesson for the comparison of adjectives.

Okay, you better make sure you know that stuff.

Not only that, we're going to be reading about, we're going to be continuing reading about the adventures of Odysseus, otherwise known, or as the Romans knew him as Ulysses, okay.

And this adventure is extremely famous and it happens in a cave and it happens with a guy called Polyphemus, that's all I'm going to tell you about it, and it's split in two, this is the first half, we'll do the second half in a couple of lesson's time.

Let's have a look, Polyphemus, who is it? Practise translation, Ulysses and Polyphemus number one.

Our learning objectives are can I translate fluently a Latin passage containing positive, comparative, and superlative adjectives? Number two, have I consolidated previous core vocab? Press pause if you need to to get the things that are on here.

If you came prepared, I'm extremely proud and pleased, thank you.

Let's have a look, vocab first.

These are the 14 words that you need to have at your fingertips in order to access the independent part of translation at the end of this lesson.

Let's then, the most frequent, the most difficult, let's have a little look at a close up on these three here.

Comes, we did look at in the previous unit's translation lesson, but let's do it again.

There are, now there is an English derivation in fact, which is concomitant, and when something is concomitant with something else, it means that it is a sort of a companion together with it, that makes sense? Because comes, now, look, "Mr. Furber, I've never going to use concomitant." Well, you're right, you might do, but the other key thing about comes is it's really easy to remember its translation because you've got comrade or companion is the translation of comes.

Now Ulysses, Odysseus we're going to be learning about today, he has comites, all right, he has not just the one, he has companions.

You might think that that one there, comes, is the plural 'cause the ES ending, but commites is companions, all right? Next up is nomen, if you nominate someone, you give their name, nomen, name.

And we're also going to remember this separate use of nomen, which is this, what's this, the ablative singular form you'll find out eventually, which literally means by name, but it's worth learning as separate vocab as nomine, called, right? It's like a separate word, separate piece of vocab, nomine, called, nomen, name.

Crudelis.

Now, our derivation is in fact one of those ones where the derivation is the translation, and the translation of crudelis, what do you think it might mean? Crudelis, what do you think? Yeah, let's find out, let's find out.

Crudelis, cruel.

All you do is just get rid of that D, we don't need it, it's not there, and you just get cruelis and it's cruel, isn't it? Crudelis, cruel.

Okay, what I'd like you to do here is to press pause and just read once over within one minute those 14 words, do not worry for a second if you don't remember them all now, we're going to practise them a lot, so just quick glance over, pressing pause now.

Okay, hands completely free, it's quizzing time.

What is the difference between cena and comes? So cena is dinner and comes is companion.

What does ceteri mean? Okay, let's just do this now, so ceteri is the rest, the English phrase et cetera is literally et cetera, meaning and the rest.

Ceteri, the rest.

A tolerable translation is the others, but I'd like you to distinguish it the rest, ceteri, the rest.

Okay companions are easy, come on, which of those two? It's comites! And fortis, ferox and crudelis.

They either look similar or they have similar meanings, what do they mean? There we go, how did we do? Great, now, crudelissimus, now let's just remind ourselves, I'm going to bring myself in, of our comparatives and superlatives, so we've got crudeliss, crudeli or crudelissimus.

Crudelissimus means two, one, the cruellest.

Fortis, fortior, fortissimus.

What's fortior mean? Fortior means fortior, means braver or more brave, okay? That's all you're going to get from me.

Sum crudelissimus means what? Good, I am very cruel or I am the cruellest.

Sumus fortissimi is going to mean what? Let's have a look.

We are very, very, so fortissimi is going to be very brave or the bravest, going to be one of those two, and sumus means we are as it was sum, which is I am.

We are the best companions.

How are we going to make that phrase? I've given you sumus, which is we are, but I want the words for the best and companions of those four, off you go.

Answer in two and there we go, so comites is companions and optimis is the best.

We are would be we are the best companions.

What's the difference capio, facio, and volo? Two, one, answer's there.

What's the difference between capit and cepit? So, capit is present tense, capio, capis, capit, he or she takes.

Cepit is an irregular perfect tense where the stem lengthens, like So it's going to be he took, all right? What's the difference between quid and quoque? Answers in two and there you go.

So quid means what.

Often Ds go to Ts in the journey from Latin to English.

Quoque is also, do you remember the Latin words for who or because? Tell me if you do.

Okay, very nice, so, because is quad, and who is not quid, but quis, excellent.

So what's vis mean? Let's run it, I'm going to bring me in, let's run it through.

So one, two, three, volo, vis.

Oh, it's that one? Vis is you.

What about volumus? Let's run it through, one, two, three, and Oh, it's that one! Volumus, we want.

What's ceteri mean? Good, et cetera and the rest.

Visne means what? We just did vis, make it a question, visne is? Do you want, one more time, visne means, do you, one more time, do you want? Do you want me to stop? Let's move on, okay.

Statim and now miming to me, what does statim mean? In three, two and there you go, statim's going to be immediately, not just now, it's going to be immediately, all right? And what's tamen? Mime tamen, how are we going to do this? Let's figure it out, mime tamen, Will be however, however, however, all right? Tamen, however, all right? And tell me tuum nomen, tell me tuum nomen.

Let's have a listen.

Good, lovely, do you want me to tell you Mr. Ferber, isn't it, all right? Because tuum nomen is your name, so thank you very much for telling me your name at home.

Right, are we ready? Of course we are, pen or pencil in hand, one to 14 down the margin, what do those words mean? Off we go.

Okay, now switching to a different colour pen, let's see how we did.

Let's have a look.

Excellent, okay, hands free again, let's have a look at what our story is actually about this lesson.

Now you may remember from the translation lesson on the neuters unit, that we did a story about this guy called Ulysses.

And Ulysses, now, the Greeks called this hero Odysseus, but the Romans had their own name for Odysseus, and they called him in fact Ulixes, okay, over there, and then the next tricky thing about it is not just that there's this different name here, but also that the English version of this Latin word, Ulixes, is up here.

U-L-Y double S-E-S is Ulysses spelled like that.

Ulysses, Ulysses.

Lovely, now this is, we're going to translate the first part of a very famous encounter that he has with a character called Polyphemus, here we go, Polyphemus, two, one.

One more time, Polyphemus, very nice.

Now, again, you may, it's so famous, you may already have heard this story, or you might've studied it in English for example.

Now Polyphemus down here is a cyclops or a cyclops is what Greeks would call him is a cyclops, which means he has, has he got loads of eyes? Has he got, it's any of those, only just got the one eye in the middle of the face, okay? Now, the image that's represented here is one to do actually with two lessons time, it's to do with Ulysses and Polyphemus, two, right? But is it all though 'cause there's something happening with them holding a staff and the eye there, but actually, do you remember what we're talking about in the two lessons back? About how in Greek vases, the painters always tried to get as much information as they could on one visual tablo, all right, and here, do we see, look at that, what's he holding in his right hand? Well he's holding a little wine, little goblet, a wine cup because now the wine is actually very important for this story here.

Polyphemus is a cyclops, he's a shepherd who lives in a cave.

Ulysses, now there is a bit of backstory that I need to tell you, 'cause I sort of chuck you in the middle in this story a bit.

The story goes as follows.

Ulysses is a duke, he's a leader, and he arrives with his comites on a new island, and in fact, Polyphemus is the first of his adventures that he tells in the Odyssey.

What happened to Polyphemus? He rose on new island, haven't got any food, they see some smoke in the distance, so they go into a cave on this island, there's no one in there, and instead, they find the cave is full of, it's a thesaurus, it's a treasure trove of what? Of cheese, it's full of cheese! And Ulysses' men say "Let's get this cheese and get out of here!" And he says, "No, no, no, no, no, hang on, we're going to hold on and see who lives here, and I'm going to ask them a few questions.

And he'll probably be really nice to us 'cause that's what people are 'cause we're so famous, we're, you know, such good heroes." Hm, okay, let's have a little look.

I mean, you probably know what the story's about anyway.

So, there's the cheese element that students love to hear, we're going to pick up with things with them in the cave in a sec.

The idea, Ulysses means Odysseus, you're going to spell it like that, and Polyphemus is a cyclops, just got the one eye, lives in a cave, and comites, that's Ulysses' men aren't they? His companions.

Okay, so, in a second, you're, actually, I'll get rid of me again, in a second, you're going to be translating this paragraph here.

Before I ask you to do that however, we're going to look at some of the trickiest things about it or to do with it, and first tricky thing to bear in mind with this passage, look how many instances there are of this, are sentences with an accusative first accusative, accusative, accusative, accusative, accusative, yeah, okay.

And how are we going to translate them? And we've done loads of work on this, but if I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times, this is a standard elementary Latin mistake right here.

Let's have a little look.

We've got cyclopem rogavit mistranslated as the cyclops asked, ugh.

Okay, just the five seconds, what's wrong with this translation? Go.

Two, one and zero, let's have a look.

What letter do? What letter do singular accusatives end in? M.

What letter do singular accusatives end in? M.

So we know that this is an acc, this is an accusative.

Now, if your first, nodding heads or shaking heads, if your first word of your Latin sentence is accusative, is it going to be the first word of your English translation? Nodding heads or shaking heads? Shaking heads because look down here, it's going to come, that accusative will be transformed, will be translated or be sort of pushed over to the right hand side of your English sentence when you translate it, okay? So first word there won't be first word of your English translation, let's have a look, oh no! Cyclops is the first word of this person's English translation.

And actually we know it should be way over here, okay? Now, what's left though, asked the cyclops, we're missing a nominative now aren't we? Well, that's when we go over here, all right, for our person ending of rogavit, and run it through with me, it's going to be I, you she, or in this case, he, all right? So our actual translation is going to be he, can you see that? Yeah of course you can.

It's going to be, that's very ugly, he asked the cyclops, you get it? He asked the cyclops.

Actually, look, I can see why students make this mistake because it's extremely counterintuitive, you actually have to read a sentence backwards.

He asked the cyclops, it's tough, you have to look at the whole thing and think about it and then put pen to paper, but that's why we're doing Latin, isn't it? All right.

What does cenam volumus mean? Okay, so now look, what letter do singular accusatives end in? M, so we know that's accusative, it will not be the first word of our English translation, so it can't be this one, it's just between these two, and mus on the end we know is we.

Therefore, what's cenam habemus mean? This one is not we want dinner, we have dinner.

What's cenam facio? It's going to be good, it's going to be not we here, but the O ending, O, I.

Same as before, last two, this word, accusative, first word, it won't be the first word of our translation, it's going to be over here somewhere when you translate.

Now we saw just now, who did that? So off you go.

This is going to be, now, it won't be that one, these are accusative endings, the two dinners are going to be over here in the sentence.

It's just between I and he and consumpsit is it's IU, he ate two dinners.

Ulixem rogavit means what? M.

Good, it's going to be he asked you this.

Let's just do it two more times, it's accusative first, it's going to be he asked Ulysses, he asked Ulysses, one more time, what's Ulixem rogavit mean? He asked Ulysses.

One more time, what on Earth does this mean? It means, thank you, he asked Ulysses, we're going to see this in the translation, make sure you get it right then, okay? It's important to practise these accusative first word sentences.

The second tricky thing in the passage is the sentence or this middle sentence here, which has a whole bunch of words in, it's got two nouns in, and it's also got at least one adjective in, one of which has something to do with comparison.

Now, here is a similar sentence, I'm not giving you the exact same one, that'd be doing it for you, wouldn't it? Here's a similar sentence, and we're going to have a little look at it together.

So let's go together, so.

Comites, ooh, ooh, I know something about comites.

Okay, don't worry, we're doing beginning, step one you need to look at beginnings of words, so I know it's from comes, and that's to do with a companion.

Companion there.

Cylcopem, what's that mean? What does that mean? It means a, what's Polyphemus? He's a cyclops, thank you.

Now crudelissimum, we're not worried, just doing the beginnings, we're not worried about this issimum here, right? We just think about crudelis, and we did this at the beginning of the lesson, it means cruel, lovely.

Cruel.

And timuerunt, mime the action of timuerent to me in three, two, and.

It's going to be, what's timuers? Is.

Timuerant means to do with fear.

Okay, step one.

Now, step two, we find us an odd looking tick, step two, we find our adjective and we think about whether it's positive, comparative, superlative, there's four words on there.

I'd like you to tell me out loud what the adjective is in that sentence after three, two, tell me the adjective, big strong voice, and one.

Good, crudelissimum, that's our adjective there.

Now you're going to show me with hands, is crudelissimum positive, comparative or superlative? Good, it's going to be superlative.

Now how are we going to change our translation cruel here to acknowledge that crudelissimum is a superlative? It's going to be crueller, no, it's going to be, tell me, it's going to be.

Good, cruellest or the most cruel.

Let's go for cruellest here, Good, and that's our step two done.

Now, step three, we then look if we've got nouns, we check the case and the number.

What's it doing in the sentence? How many of them were there? If it's a verb, we check the person who did it and the tense, when did it happen? What was that thing you wanted to tell me about comites a while ago? Can you tell me again now? Good, well remembered, lovely, it's that it's plural, comites, this is our nominative, but it's how are we going to change companion? Is that enough for you to make it companions? Thank you, so companions, cyclopem, what letter do singular, what letter do singer accusatives end in? M.

What letter do singular accusatives end in? M.

Okay? And so therefore it's accusative and because it's singular, we don't need to change anything, so that stays the same, cruellest is done, we've got timuerunt, V, U, X, S, E, ed, ed, ed, ed, ed, so it's going to be fear, how are we going to change fear? Going to make it feared here, put that ed there.

That's the U part done, but we still got erunt, Who did the fearing? It was they, thank you.

They.

That's step three.

Now, putting it in order, it's not over, it's still plenty more to do.

Although we're nearly there.

Now, do we remember, in Latin, adjectives come after their nouns? We did work on this, but you have to put them in front of their nouns when you translate in here.

This one sort of does itself because it's clearly, the context tells you who's going to be really cruel, it's not going to be the companions is it? But it's just about making sure you put the things together properly.

Cyclopem, crudelissimum, these clearly agree, don't they? So you can't, your unit is going to be, when you translate it, you put this word first, and it's going to be the.

When you see a circle like this when you've got an adjective and a noun, when you translate it, it's going to be, it's going to come out like this.

The phrase will be the, that word, that word.

The that word, that word, so, the cruellest cyclops that's receiving the fearing.

We've got companions cyclops cruellest they feared.

Put that together, make that make sense based on the instructions, the information over here okay? Off you go, tell me.

Nice, okay, we should have the, and I'm going to write the whole thing out, okay? Bear with me, wish me luck.

It's going to be the, nominative, the companions.

Now we go to our verb, feared, now we don't need the they 'cause we know who did the fearing, okay? The companions feared the cruellest cyclops.

Full stop, great.

There'll be a sentence that looks like this that you're going to do in a sec.

Use this example as a little clue, as practise, okay? You'll be fine.

Okay, right.

Translation time, let's have a look at this passage.

So, are we ready? Course we are.

We've got Once upon a time, there was a Cyclops called Polyphemus, he was, now he was huge, I'm just going to, there you go.

He was the hugest, he was what? He was ingentior, he was more huge, ferocior, he was more fierce, and crudelior, he was more cruel, quam than viri, than men.

And, he he had he had only one eye in his capite, in his head.

Or on his head, you might say.

Okay.

Once upon a time, he returned, ad cavum, to his cave with his sheep.

After, he posuit, V, U, X, S, E, ed, ed, ed, ed, ed.

Pono, Pono.

After he put a Saxum, the rock, ante on, in front of, literally in front of the door, you might hear say in front of the doorway, in front of the entrance, maybe.

And he ignem fecit, and he made a ignis and he made a fire, suddenly, go to conspexit, he noticed or he caught sight of some men in the shadows.

Who do you think these are? And he goes That's my best impression.

Let's have a look, so, who "Who are you?" Polyphemus asked.

And he's iratissimus, is he just angry? He asked very angry, or the very angry Polyphemus asked.

Unus, one, stetit, stood in front of the comrades, the companions.

He was He was cleverer than the rest, he was Ulysses, he was otherwise known by the Greeks as Odysseus.

Right, let's have a look and see what happens in that cave, what's going to happen? So pressing pause, get translating.

And now press pause for this bit if you want to have a look at that final paragraph for the challenge.

Okay, different colour pen at the ready, let's have a look at that paragraph there.

Ulysses said "We are very brave Greeks." Or we are the bravest Greeks, if you wrote that, that's absolutely fine, or we are very strong or we are the strongest Greeks, anything like that.

And cenam volumus, we want dinner.

"Quam commode," Polyphemus responded, "cenam nucn facio." "How convenient," Polyphemus replied, "I'm making dinner right now." And immediately, he took and ate two companions.

Well done if you did this bit, this was a tough sentence 'cause you've actually got the companions are taking two objects, they're taking and they're eating, so really well done if you got that, and they're not doing the verb.

So immediately he took and ate two companions.

The rest of the companions, timebant, were afraid of the very cruel or the cruellest cyclops.

We did practise on that, well done if you got it.

Ulysses, however, was fortior, was braver or stronger.

I think braver's better here.

Now, did we get this? Course you did.

Now he asked the Cyclops.

Habemus, we have the best or very good or excellent wine.

Visne, do you also want to drink? Polyphemus keep it, he took the wine and drank.

"What is your name?" The Cyclops asked.

Let's have a look at that final section, it means I get to do more of my cyclops voice.

Ulysses responded.

It's great, it was a great joke, he risit, laetissimus.

Ooh, let's have a look.

Now, Ulysses, what's he call himself? He says "My name is Nemo." "What, like the fish, sir?" Oh, that's so funny.

"My name is no one, I'm called nobody." Ulysses replied.

And Polyphemus says "Donum habeo." "I have a gift Nemo, Nobody." Polyphemus said.

Now you think he's given him some wine, so you think well, what's the gift? I'm going to give you a gift in return.

He says "I want to save you." Oh, he's going to live is he? "I want to save you." "Ut epidipnidem!" "For pudding, for dessert!" And then risit laetissimus, and he laughed very happily, so the gift that he gives Ulysses he says I'm going to eat you last, you'll have the longest to live of all your friends.

Ulysses, however, he quoque, also laughed, and he gave the wine iterum, he gave him some wine again.

Polyphemus iterum et iterum, again and again was drinking, and in the end, finally, he dormivit, he fell asleep, and that is where the story ends for now.

If you want to know how that story finishes, you're going to have to do the adverbs based translation lesson are you not? To see how he gets out of that cave.

You probably know how to do it anyway, but you won't have translated it in Latin before will you? Right, so I'll see you there.

Now, before that though, you're obviously going to have to do loads of stuff, you're going to have to do the adverbs lesson first, but before that even, you're going to have to complete that exit quiz.

All that's left is for us to just say valete to each other.

Maybe you'd like to say valete in your best cyclops voice.

What's that? You would? Course you would.

Valete! Okay, fine, I'll see you next lesson, very well done.