Lesson video

Salvete, omnes.

Salve, magister.

This is the first translation lesson in the unit on irregular verbs.

Now, as well as translating the irregular verbs sum, es ess, sum ess es sunt and eram, I was; the imperfect tense of sum; It's not only about that, all right; it's not only about grammar.

We're also going to be translating stories over the course of this unit about the famous historical figure and ruler of Egypt you've probably heard of already, who's called Cleopatra.

So, this one is about, er, Cleopatra, er, how she became Pharaoh in the first place.

Let's have a little look.

Practise translation, Caesar and Cleopatra are learning objectives; Our discenda are: Can I translate fluently a Latin passage containing the irregular verbs sum and eram? Have I consolidated previous core vocabulary? Press pause if you need to to get those things.

Right; I'm moving on.

Ah, let's have a look at that vocab first.

You will remember how this works; these are the 14 either most frequent or most difficult words that you must know 100% all the way through, in order to be able to translate today's passage.

And I'm going to talk you through; if you don't know all of them yet that's absolutely fine, because I will talk you through some and then we will, er, practise them, all right? So, first thing, what on earth do these five new words mean? Let's have a little look.

So first on all, consilium.

Consilium.

Now, this is a tricky one.

In English, if you give someone good counsel, if you provide them with good counsel that means you're giving them a good advice, or you're providing them with a good plan.

Consilium is a plan or an idea.

Now, not only that, but there's this nice, interesting little phrase, which is 'consilium capio' Consilium cap, consilium capio, which means, 'I literally, I take an idea' ah, capio, but we're going to translate it as 'I have an idea'.

Consilium capio; I have an idea.

All right? Next up is regina.

Now, some people on this course or watching this video will have seen this word loads of times cause they might have seen the previous course.

All right, but for those who haven't, this is the female version 'regin-a' of a rex.

We get words like regal or reign, and a female version of a rex is going to be a queen; someone who is regal, someone who has a reign.

Um, don't confuse it, though, just because it looks like rex doesn't mean you can just translate that as king.

Nor does it mean that if you see a word with 'reg' on the front you can just think it means queen, cause regina is queen.

All right; remember that rex has this root of reg, which it uses for any case other than the nominative singular.

Regina; queen.

Consilium capio, capio; I have an idea.

Next up is res; oh oh ooh, this is tricky; isn't it? Um, now, res beget words like real, or reality.

Something that's real is a thing, or in this case, your things are your possessions.

So you're also going to see a special meaning of res in this translation, which is possession, okay? Ah, don't confuse that with rex; just because ess and ex; I don't know, just because two of the three letters are the same, doesn't mean for a second that you can just think that that means king, no no no! Res is something that if your things are real, it's going to be a possession.

Ab, we've done a few times before in previous lessons; if you've not seen it before don't worry.

Um, our derivations are words like absent or abdicate or abnormal; if you're absent, you're away from that current place; if you abdicate, you step down from a job; if you're abnormal, then you are sort of outside, you're from, you're away from what is normal.

Ah, ab, we can tell, means from; a or ab.

Now, the preposition there, there but for the grace of one letter, ab, goes to ad, all right, which means towards.

Ad, ab, ad, ab, all right? Um, erm, or ad, ab, ad, ab.

Ad is when you advance, it's when you go toward something; advenio; I arrive; I come towards somewhere.

Ab, I go away; I'm absent.

All right? So don't confuse these two.

It's very important.

And we've got one more, which is inter, and this has some great derivations; if you interfe, inter, if you interfere, or if you interru, whoa, if you interrupt, or if you intervene, venio is 'I come', which literally means I come between people; I burst in among or between people.

Inter is among or between.

So if you interrupt something, then someone's speaking and you sort of get between their words or something; does that make sense? Or if two people are fighting and you intervene, that means you're among or between them, all right? Inter; among or between.

Let's have a little look at, so these are the 14.

What I'm going to ask you to do here is to just press pause, take one minute to just read through the words.

If you can't remember them all off a reading, that's what's meant to happen; don't you worry about it because we're going to have loads of, we're going to do, I'm going to ask you loads of questions about them.

So if you just press pause, have a quick read and remind yourself what these words mean.

Off you go.

Okay; let's have a little look at some quiz questions.

Nice, easy one to start, what's the difference between consilium and custos? Consilium is a plan, and custos is a guard; it's someone who holds you in custody, nothing to do with a delicious pudding.

Ah, nox and nuntius, what's the difference there? Good, so nox goes to noc, which is what nocturnal animals are ones which live at night, and a nuntius is someone who announces something, so is a messenger.

Now if you do this one, you've got this one, it's absolutely, it's in the bag.

Who is a res, rex and regina; off you go.

Great, so res is your, that's your things, your possessions, all right, regina is your feminine, that's queen, and rex is king.

Great.

Difference between ab, and a ab and ad, now this can mean two things and this can mean three things.

So it's not just going to be one each, all right, what's going to happen? Okay let's have a look, so ad, we'll start with, it's going to be to, or towards, or at.

Yeah, remember that; all you're doing is just changing a d to a t there, it's easy; ad, at.

And ab, it's going to be from or away.

Don't think that that's just because you're going away that ab means out, because out is a or ex, all right? Erat in the first word, is it 'it was' or 'there was'? Do you remember this, from the last lesson? It's going to be there was.

Custodes, is that guard or guards? It's going to be guards, good.

Ah, erant, first word, have a guess, what was erat? Because erant's going to be ant.

Okay, so erat, first word was 'there was', so erant is going to be, not 'they were', but there, do we got that, 'there were'.

Erant; there were.

Right, difference between a, you guys are fine; come on, ab, inter and ad.

What's inter? Lovely; this is an easy one, isn't it? Ab, is going to be away, ad is to, towards or at, and inter can mean both among or between.

Keep your eyes on inter there; what, therefore does inter res mean? What's the best translation for inter res, do you think? Okay, you ready? Now, this is plural, all right, so it's not going to be any of these singulars, and also you wouldn't really use 'among' with a singular, would you? 'Among the possession' doesn't make much sense.

So it's going to be, the best one would be 'among the possessions'.

If you thought, 'between the things' that's fine, but when you see it in this translation as you're going to see in a few minutes, inter res; among the, or her possessions will be the best translation.

What's a nuntius a regina? Nuntius a regina.

Good, two, one and messenger from the queen.

A or ab is from, regina is feminine, so queen.

Got it.

What's that going to be? Nuntius, now I'm just adding venit.

Nuntius a regina venit.

What was venio? What's that going to mean? Okay good, tell me, say it out loud in two, one, Yeah that's good; let's have a look.

So, a or the messenger comes from the queen, or the messenger from the queen comes.

Is that okay? Yeah? Great.

What is, that's why, this is where I come in.

Ah, I'd like you to mime to me what a donum is.

Mine what a donum is to me in three, two, one It's going to be, be like that, because a donum is a gift; if you donate something you give a gift.

Mime consilium; what's a consilium? Mime it to me in two, one, it's going to be an idea, good, or a plan.

Inter, mime inter to me in three, two, one, It's like, break it up, break it up guys; it's not worth it.

It would be, erm, among or between, isn't it, inter, yeah? Break it up.

And consilium capio would be what? Just add a capio; what's that going to do? It's going to be I, be like that, I have an idea.

Great, and via; can you mime via for me? It's going to be something like go like that,.

So it's a street; there's three potential translations, for this week I just want you to focus on that one there, way; via meaning way.

Okay, and getting rid of me, you can do this, the difference between sum, sumus and est.

Great, answers in two, one, let's go.

Sum, es, est, sumus.

All right, so I am , she is, we are.

And last of all, if erat is the first word, it means, what does it mean it was? It means, tell me.

There was; and if erant is the first word it means not there was, but sorry, I just told you, it means there, no, there were, not there was but there were, one more time, erat's the first word, there was; erant first word, there were.

One more time, erant first, erat first word; there was, erant first word, there were.

Great, are we ready? Of course we are; get that pen at the ready; it's time to get testing.

One to 14 down the margin, what do those words mean? Pressing pause now.

Okay, how did we do? Switching to a different colour pen, mark those answers for me.

Great, I have, how did we do? Of course you did well.

Really well done if you included between here, which I didn't have room for I don't think; similarly if you've included street for via as well, that's really great.

Fantastic, let's move on.

Let's see how we're doing.

Let's learn about what we're actually going to be translating about today, so, the, no go back up here, the three modules for this term are, or the three translation lessons, sorry, for this unit are all about the historical character of Cleopatra, and Cleopatra is interesting because she was a female ruler at a time of, erm, when Rome was um, nearly at the peak of it's power and obviously Roman society was run by men, it was a patriarchy, whereas Cleopatra had to sort of forge, so she had to sort of keep her grips on power, and she sort of used her gender to do that in a very interesting way.

Um, now here, this last story is going to be about how Cleopatra got to be queen or pharaoh of Egypt, which was, ah, actually had her reign, all right, and this is about how, as I said, this is about how she managed to get that job, and she started off, actually, by fighting a war, with, here's Cleopatra here; she's a regina; she's queen, but in a minute she's saying she's queen, she's not quite there yet, and she's a soror, she's a sister to this guy over here, who is called, now after me, Ptolemeus, Ptolemeus, very nice, and he is claiming; he is saying, "Well I'm rex, I'm rex", he's saying, "I am king", and he is Cleopatra's frater, he is her brother.

All right? Now, who enters the scene? None other than; this isn't L; this is an I, other than Iulius Caesar, the Julius Caesar, who isn't technically emperor; there's another translation of imperator which we're going to be looking at this week, which means commander.

So he actually wasn't, we know that the first Roman emperor was Augustus, who was related to Julius Caesar, so Julius Caesar is not actually the emperor; he is just a commander; but he's very, very powerful at that time, the most powerful Roman at that point.

Okay, let's have a look and see if any of that went in.

So Ah, let's have a look.

Cleopatra or Ptolemy; what is the relationship between these two here; they are something and something; are they father and daughter? They are, correct; they are brother and sister.

Do they rule Greece? Are they trying to be king and queen of Greece? Nodding heads or shaking heads? It's going to be shaking heads, good, Cleopatra, you may even have learnt just before this anyway, that she, they are trying to, they are disputing over the reign of Egypt.

This guy, is he an emperor? Is Julius Caesar an emperor? Nodding heads, shaking heads.

He is, were we listening? He is, shaking heads, imperator, we're going to go for commander; the most powerful Roman at that time, um, and Cleopatra, was she, I didn't mention this, but Cleopatra was the last pharaoh of Egypt because, well, who's going to take over Egypt at the end of this module, really, I guess you'll have to wait and see won't you? You'll have to find out.

So, there's a few things to look at in this translation passage before we move on, and what's going to happen is, this is the passage you're going to be doing in about, you know, a few minutes time, the first tricky thing to look at is all these instances of erat or erant.

Non erat, erat, erant, okay.

So we're going to do some practise.

I'm not going to give you the exact same sentences; why would I do that? Would I just do the translation for you? I'm going to give you ones that have been changed a little bit.

This first example, now normally I do the first example myself, but not this one; not this one, no no no, we've got erant custodes, and a student has translated it sort of correctly, as 'they were guards'.

What's a better translation of that? Five seconds.

Two, one, and zero.

Good, so we should know that erant first word; there were, lovely, so we get rid of they and we put in 'there were guards'.

Good, okay.

Erat via, is going to be which of those three based on that rule? Good.

Erat first word; 'there was', and the via we're going to translate as 'way' for this week; 'there was a way' with this lesson.

What about nox erat though? Where's the erat? Let's have a look.

Right, so, erat nox would mean 'there was night', but here we've not got that, so in fact, 'it was night' is the best translation for nox erat.

Let's have a look at this second thing we're looking at, is all these instances of prepositions here; inter, ad, in, a, okay, so how are we going to translate them? Let's have a look.

Erant custodes ad villam.

Bin! Again; it's okay, but it can be improved.

The sense isn't there.

It's been translated as, 'there were guards' that bit's good, 'towards the house'.

Five seconds; how can we improve that? Go.

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

So, this one hinges on your translation of ad.

Ad can mean three things, one meaning, two or three.

To, towards, and? Good.

To, towards, at.

Now, do we see here how towards, there were guards towards, what, so they're both staying in one place and moving, actually a better translation is going to be, 'there were guards at the house'.

Really well done if you figured that out; it's nice.

Other than that, we're all doing okay.

So, let's have a look at this next one.

Erat via in villam.

Bin, now.

It's either one thing or it's the other, so you should be able to figure out the mistake here, and it lies with in, but I want you to really know why this is wrong down here.

So we've got as mistake here, which is, 'there was a way in the house'.

There was a way in the house.

What's wrong with that translation? Five seconds.

One, and let's have a look.

So, we should remember, and in fact if you don't know the answer, might I thoroughly recommend going and having a little look at my, er, at the module before this one, the prepositions one, all right, which includes how to translate in; it's a whole lesson on how to look at 'in' and make sure you get the difference between 'into' and 'in'.

So here the key thing you need to remember is there's a few instances have been in the passage and most of the time the noun that's going to come after in has an M on the end, and if that's the case this is in the accusative form, which means you are doing motion towards and that means you're going to mean not 'in' but 'into'.

All right.

So, this isn't going to be 'in' here; but 'into'.

The other meaning of in, if you see in with a noun and that doesn't have an M on the end, then that means in.

So in plus an M; into, in with no M; in.

All right? In plus an M; into, In with no M; in.

Okay? Erat via in villam; there was a way into the house.

Inter res meant what? Inter.

Res, ooh.

Ready at two, one, meant among the, or among her possessions, good.

Nuntius a regina means what? A something, something the something.

Means, two, one, a messenger from the queen.

Okay, the third thing we're looking at are these tricky, um, these tricky perfect tenses.

Some of them are easy; portavit, clamavit, salutavit but other ones might be a bit trickier.

So, let's have a look at amicus donum, now that's all your clue; off you go.

It's going to be, ed, ed, ed, ed; there's your ed there, the friend carried the gift.

Good.

Um, now regina, now I've not explicitly taught you this so I'm really interested to see if you get it.

Regina consilium cepit.

What do we think? Okay, point at the right answer in two, and it's going to be this one; it's your perfect tense, capio goes to cepit, meaning I took, in this case I had, all right? If it were 'the queen is having', you'd have a bar here, wouldn't you, capia bat, and present tense would be capit, so we sort of know by process of elimination that that's going to be perfect tense, the queen had an idea.

And custodes ad villam venerunt, is that present or perfect tense? Erunt.

Okay, let's have a look.

So it is, all of them are, or I gave you the clue at the beginning, this is also perfect tense.

The reason this isn't present, all right, is that you've got, "wait Mr Furber, where's the V, U, X or S or I if there's no, if you're meant to have an ed on the end? Okay, it's because, look, run it through, perfect tense and there's so we know that's from; that's the one that's the end of the one that starts with E, and that is my perfect tense ending, so I know it's not going to be comes, but came.

Okay? Right, let's have a look at that first page then; let's have a look at that beginning of the passage.

Olim, just stay there, olim erant frater et soror, nominibus Cleopatra et Ptolemaeus, frater et soror semper pugnabant, tandem Ptolemaeus sororem superavit et expulit.

Let's have a look.

Olim; that's one, that's sort of, yeah, once, once upon a time, now excuse me, erant first word? They were? It's going to be? Yep; there were, what did we say; once there were a brother and sister called Cleopatra and Ptolemy.

The brother and sister were always, when I say bar, you say, good, they were, I already told you that anyway, were always fighting.

Tandem; finally, or at last, Ptolemy superavit; he overpowered his sister; oh no, and he drove her out, so she was kicked out of Egypt.

Tum; then, forte Caesar ad Aegytum advenit et in aula habitabat.

Cleopatra igitur consilium cepit: necesse est invenire Caesarem et auxilium quarere! Right.

Tum; then, forte; by chance, it so happened that Caesar arrived.

Where did he get to? Did he arrive in Italy? He arrived at he arrived at Egypt, and he when I say bar, you say good; was or were, and he was living or staying in the aula; in the palace, so he goes to and stays in the Ptolemaic palace.

Igitur; therefore, Cleopatra, good; is it has an idea? Cleopatra had an idea, and she said, "it is necessary to find Caesar and to search for, to look for his help".

Okay, so she's Ptomely's kicked her out.

Cleopatra has to try and sneak back into Egypt, or back into Alexandria, which is the capital of Egypt, where Ptolemy's staying.

Caesar at the minute's staying with Cleopatra's brother Ptolemy, and I think Cleopatra has to try and sneak in there to see Caesar somehow.

How is she going to do it? Let's find out.

Pressing pause here, so you can keep translating; off you go.

And, if you want to see how the story finishes then do translate that final paragraph as a challenge.

Okay, switching to a different coloured pen; let's see how we did on that passage.

So, nox erat; it was night.

Cleopatra and she takes a friend with her, Cleopatra and the friend, or her friend is fine secretly came to the palace.

At, now really well done if you got this difference here; I was trying to clue you in on this, towards the palace there, at the palace, there were many guards.

There was not a way into; it's okay if you wrote in, but please do now, if you just wrote in can you write into, to make in plus an M, into, so there was not a way into the palace; if you wrote there was no way, that's absolutely fine.

There was not a way into the palace, sumus.

"We are done for!" The friends shouted.

But among her possessions; did we get that? Yeah of course you did.

Was; 'there was' is absolutely fine there, there was, or just was a carpet.

Cleopatra had an idea; "I will hide in the carpet!" Then her friend carried the carpet into the palace.

Good.

Again, into here; in aulam, a way into the palace, carried it into the palace.

The friend greeted Caesar.

Sum, I am; I got you to do this loads, didn't I? A messenger from the queen.

Here, or this is a gift.

He unrolled, or unravelled the carpet, and it was, or there was is absolutely fine here too, there was Cleopatra.

That's one of my favourite stories there on Cleopatra, and what happens at the end? Let's have a look.

Caesar reginam statim amavit, quod consilium erat optimum.

Caesar igitur Ptolomeum superavit et Cleopatra reginam fecit.

Imperator reginam novam cum filio novo ad urbem Romam duxit, sed ir urbe, Brutus et Cassius Caesarem exspectabant.

♪ Do do do doooo ♪ Let's have a look here.

Erm, statim; that happen later? When did that happen? Immediately, Caesar full in love with, or loved literally the queen because her consilium erat optimum, because her idea was excellent; it was really good, so he fell in love with her, cause of the carpet idea, it was so clever.

Caesar igitur; therefore, now, did Ptomely defeat Caesar? Did he defeat Cleopatra? He overpowers Ptolemy; he goes over to Cleopatra's side and he fecit; he made Cleopatra regina, he made her queen.

The emperor? The commander, good, you would have to go all the way down here for your verb on this; really, that's the longest sentence we've seen yet, the commander led; duxit, the new queen with, so who was also there? A new son to the city of Rome.

So, Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, as I said they fall in love; they have a son together who's called Caesarion, but in the city, who's waiting there? Brutus and Cassius were waiting for Caesar.

And if you know about the history of Julius Caesar, maybe you've read, in school you've read Shakespear's Julius Caesar, Brutus and Cassius have some, some pretty dangerous plans in store for Caesar.

What's Cleopatra going to do? She's in Rome, Caesar's in danger; you're going to have to find out for the next instalment of Cleopatra's adventures.

Okay, right.

Once you've marked and corrected your answers, then complete that exit quiz.

Other than that, all that's left is for us to say valete to one another.

I hope you enjoyed that story about the young Cleopatra; we're finding out in two lessons time what happens later to her in her life.

Valete; very well done.

I'll see you then.