Lesson video

This is the first of a tiny two-lesson module unit on prepositions.

And in this lesson, the grammar lesson, we will be focusing specifically on the preposition, it's seemingly easy and in fact notoriously difficult.

And that preposition is.

In, Mr. Furber, I know how to translate in.

It means in, does it? I mean, well it does, but it also means loads of other things, okay.

So let's have a look at that, in.

Prepositions with the accusative and ablative.

Our discenda or learning objectives are, do I know the rule for prepositions with the accusative and ablative, and can I translate prepositional phrases, including the Latin word in with complete accuracy? Press pause to go and get any of these things if you don't have them already.

Well done, if you have come prepared.

Okay, let's have a look at this grammar point in action.

We're going to be reading a or just three, a few sentences of a crocodile's tour around some key sites.

And here is our opening sentence.

Crocodila in viam ambulat.

Now do we see a crocodile anywhere? No, that's because she's not at the via the street yet.

She has to be walking in Viam, just to walk onto, not into the street.

Should we see her? Let's have a look.

There she is.

Some of you might recognise her, those of you who did the previous course, all right.

So this is the crocodile walks.

She wasn't there initially, the crocodile walks onto or into the street.

But when she's at that location, you can't use this phrase anymore.

The Latin changes, look.

Crocodila in via ambulat.

This is where she's staying at that location.

The crocodile walks in on the streets.

Should we have to look at another example? Yes, we will.

Her next location is this delightful hortum this delightful gardens.

And crocodila in hortum ambulat.

Is she there yet? No, here she comes, ready? And this is the crocodile walks into, there she is.

So she wasn't in the garden and she walked into, in hortum, the garden.

But when she's there, what changes? Look at that, in horto.

And now she's going for delightful stroll.

She's not leaving the garden, she's not going from there into it.

She's merely walking in the garden, in horto, in the garden.

One more example, what's our third location? Look at that, Mount Vesuvius.

Okay, hope you know, long before the eruption, all right.

Crocodila in montem ambulat, do we see the crocodile there? No, that's because she's going away from it.

She's starting not in the location and she's walking onto the mountain, in montem.

And here she comes.

I can't make the animation work that goes up a hill has to come from, she's fluid, all right? Sorry, the crocodile walks onto the mountain and now she's staying at that location, but she's still doing some walking, and it's going to be in monte.

The crocodile walks on, she's staying on that location.

She's walking on the mountain.

What just happened? Let's have a little look.

Well, a preposition, the only preposition we saw there was the word in, right? But there's loads more in both English and Latin.

And it's a word that comes before a noun to do with space and time.

For example, to or at and Latin word ad, you go to the shops, it has to do with space, but you do it at mid-day it has to do with time.

Out is the Latin word ex and with is the Latin word cum.

All there is to do, you add a noun on, all right, and you get and that's how they work, okay.

Out of the frying pan, with my friends.

Now those things I was just saying, out of the frying pan, with my friends, are what's called prepositional phrases, because there you have a preposition and a noun put next to each other, and that phrase, as I said, prepositional phrase is what it's called.

Now, so far English and Latin are exactly the same.

But what's different for Latin is as follows.

And we just saw loads of instances of it, which is that you're already used to the fact that Latin nouns change the endings of Latin nouns change based on what they're doing in a sentence, right.

This is something that happens a bit in English with singular and plural, and maybe sometimes the subject's object, but it happens all the time in Latin.

And the rule for how the endings of the nouns in prepositional phrases change is as follows.

If your preposition is to do with motion towards, going towards somewhere, then your ending is in the accusative case.

But if your preposition is to do with staying still or moving away, then your case the ending of your noun, is in this new thing that you might just have heard about called the ablative.

It's bringing me and I know covering up there, ablative, ablative, ablative, all right.

So ablative, this is new set of endings, which we'll see after prepositions to do with staying still or motion away.

Let's just quickly go.

So accusative, accusative motion towards ablative is staying still, motion away.

With me, accusative, ablative, accusative, ablative.

One more time, accusative, ablative.

Okay, what's this one? It's accusative, isn't it? What's that one? It's ablative.

What's that one? Yeah, still ablative.

Is that one ablative? No, it's accusative.

You get the idea? Accusative, one more time, ablative.

Okay, what does this rule actually look like in practise? Well, what I'd like to do on this slide is to press pause after I finish speaking and just read these eight prepositions here, half of which take the accusative and the other half take the ablative.

Now this half, the meaning you should see, should be to do with motion towards, look at that.

Whereas this half you'll see, meaning should be to do with either staying still or going away.

So just press pause and familiarise yourself with that rule there.

Okay, now at this point, there's usually a student who asks me, well, look Mr. Furber, I'm not really that bothered about what goes on the end of the noun, all right because when it comes to it, I'm just going to translate the preposition, aren't I? If I see something, I'll know it means towards the house.

I don't care whether it's And at this point, that's when I show you this.

Ha, ha, all right, because there is this preposition in which can take both the accusative and the ablative.

If you see in plus the accusative, it's going to mean motion towards, so it'll mean into or onto.

If you see in plus the ablative, then you're staying still.

And it would just mean in or on.

We saw this six times you remember, with our crocodile friend at the beginning of the lesson.

And it is so important just when doing Latin because it forces you to really scrutinise what's on the end of your noun in that preposition phrase, whether it's accusative or ablative, cause that's the way you get the right translation.

You have to look at the noun in order to get the right translation.

You can't just rely on translating the preposition and ignoring the end of the noun, okay.

Now what do these word endings actually look like? Well, this is a table giving you ablative endings.

You've already seen these ones in our sentences, but these are the plurals down here.

Here's a version of that same table with these, with the hortus and not mons but urbs meaning city.

There's a lot of content here.

So in fact, what I'm going to do is break this down and we're going to look at singulars first.

All right now, the first thing we're going to look at is just these singulars.

I'm going to bring me in and I'm going to move myself down here so I can talk to you.

So the key thing here is, now do we see, all right, what letter do singular accusatives end in? M, what letter do singular accusatives end in M, all right.

M, M, M, now accusative what's that one? Is that one staying still going backwards? No, no, accusative motion towards.

So this one's easy.

The moment you see an M you know it's going to be motion towards.

If you see in plus a noun with an M on the end, you know, it's going to be into something.

Cause that's motion towards with in, in to.

If you don't see an M, then you know, it's going to be in.

All right into, in, into in.

Okay, M on the end in to, no M on the end, in.

All right, let's see how that's going similarly with your in Viam, into the street.

That's all I'm going to tell you about that though, because we're going to do a little quiz in viam.

Is that accusative or additive? What, let her do singular accusative add in M.

Hortum therefore accusative, horto come on, process of elimination.

It's going to be ablative.

Urbem, accusative, urbe therefore ablative.

Okay, it's as simple as that via last of all, additive.

And it could also be nominative Ooh, a bit of stretching there.

So now, which of these are accusative and which are ablative of those six nouns there? Simplest is what letter do single accusative end in M? Singular accusative is ending in M.

Singular accusative ending in M? So all these ones are single accusative with an M on the end and if it's not got an M then in this instance, it's going to be ablative so via, urbe and horto.

Let's put me back over here.

Now, normally we do put your left hand up for the normative.

Right hand up for the accusative.

There's no normative in this lesson for now.

So instead, we're going to do is accusative, it is with prepositions, accusative, ablative.

Accusative, ablative, okay.

Accusative, so I'm going to point out down here, and I'm going to ask you, is it going to be accusative or ablative and you either tell me or you just point, all right.

So, which am I going to pick? On countdown three, two, one, which am I going to pick? Let's have hortum.

Is this accusative or ablative? Accusative or ablative? After three, two going to be, accusative.

Silvam, accusative.

Tabernam, accusative.

Montem, accusative.

Monte, ablative.

Hortum, its still accusative.

Horto, ablative.

Tabernam again, accusative.

Taberna, ablative.

Via, ablative.

Urbem, accusative.

Muro, ablative, right.

Let's move on now.

That's all well and good but can we do with in to.

Can we do with in, sorry that meaning either into or to and all.

And can we then translate? So it's one to one, I know that now, in plus accusative means motion towards it.

It's not going to be in, it's going to be in to.

In plus the ablative means just staying still, so it's going to be in or on.

So accusative in to, on to ablative in or on.

♪ And which am I going to pick? ♪ ♪ On countdown three, two, one, which I'm I going to pick? ♪ Let's have tabernam, it's going to be in so in tabernam, into the shop or in the shop.

So in tabernam three, two, one, it's going to be that one, okay.

You knew over here that accusative was that.

So now just give the appropriate translation of in any of those four and tell me what taberna means, got it? So in tabernam is going to be into the shop, in taberna would be in the shop, lovely.

Okay, let's go, in hortum into the garden good, in hortum in the garden.

In silvam is now into.

Tell me what silvam is, that's not right.

That's a rubbish clue.

Silva is, it has nothing to do with a metal is a wood.

So, in silvam would be into the wood.

In muro, do you remember what muro is? I'm going to tell you here that muro is a wall, I'm not going to give you a muro now cause that's too easy, I'm going to move on.

In horto again was in the garden.

In nave would be in the ship, good.

Cause it would be in navem, that M will tell you it's accusative into the ship.

Now, there's another translation here.

You can either say in the ship or you could say on the ship, okay.

In nave, in the ship or on the ship.

Now think about that for in monte, will be good.

Would you say in the mountain, or you would say on the mountain? What about in Montem? It's going to be what direction? Good, are you going to say into the mountain? Maybe if there was a tunnel.

I mean, they Greeks always built tunnels in the mountains, but you're probably going to say onto the mountain.

In monte onto the mountain in monte in the mountain.

In moru, did you remember what muros was? In muro.

Even if you can't remember what the translation is, you can definitely tell me from that ending, whether it's going to be into or on in muro, in three, two.

Good, thank you.

Ablative, it's going to be on the, Yeah? What was that in muros, on the wall, lovely.

That's your singular M on the end, into no M on everyone can remember that because you're going to need to, It's going to be one of those plurals.

Before we do that in via is what? Good, in the streets pick up the pace, in hortum, we'll be? Into the garden and it's plurals time.

So now do we see, I'm going to bring myself back.

Plurals are a bit different, but the first thing we look at for plurals is the following, which is that do we see, we don't worry about the nominative.

We're just looking at accusative and ablative in this lesson but do we see how everything has an S on the end? If you, there is no excuse for getting plurals wrong in this lesson.

Because if you see an S on the end in Latin, you put an after preposition, you put an S on the end in English.

It's as simple as that in that lesson.

There's no excuse for not knowing your plurals in this lesson at all.

There is however, some difficulty in telling the difference.

I have a bit more consideration in students being unable to distinguish students between the es and S.

It's tough for the es and os but the key thing to remember here is that actually, if this one goes the other way round and your es endings remember are the ablative endings.

Because either you got es first and second declension is exactly the same.

You've either got es you've got ibus.

So if you see es or ibus, you think in the somethings.

These ones, es or ibus in the somethings.

Es or ibus in the somethings, right? Therefore in vi-is will be in the streets, in hortis, in the gardens, in urb-ibus Where is it? In urb-ibus in the cities.

♪ Now, what letter do plural accusative end in S.

♪ ♪ What letter do plural accusative end in S.

♪ So the same rule as before, if you see a plural accusative you see the S there then it's going to be accusative it's into, and you put an S on the end, it's got an S on the end, in Latin for goodness sake.

I won't tell you those ones though, cause I'm going to give the game away too much.

So this is ablative means in and it's plural.

Viis is the accusative or ablative? Come on easy.

That is ablative, therefore, hortis is going to be? Lovely ablative, hortos must be process of elimination.

What letter do singular accusative, sorry, plural accusative end in? S right? Vias, that's accusative.

Cause ves was the opposite.

Urbes is accusative and urbibus therefore is ablative.

Let's go now, which are accusative which are ablative of those six? Off we go.

Cool, let's have a look.

Ablatives endings are is, es, urbus.

So those three are ablatives, they're going to be in the somethings.

Whereas these three, as, os, es they are your accusative.

They'll be into the some things.

Let's have a look, we're either going to do don't tell me anything.

You don't have to say accusative if you don't want to.

You go accusative, ablative.

♪ Which am I going to, I count down three, two, one.

♪ Which, oh, hold on, hold on.

I can't make anything rhyme, which am I going to? ♪ Let's have tabernas, ♪ It doesn't rhyme, tabernas though.

Is it going to be accusative or of ablative? Accusative.

Muros, accusative.

Hortis, is going to be ablative.

Silvis, ablative.

Urbes, accusative.

Urbibus, ablative.

Montes, accusative.

And urbibus, what is urbibus right now? Ablative.

But all this stuff is plural.

Everything on here is plural, you can tell me that look, S S S.

Plural, plural, right.

How's it going to work with in now? ♪ Which I'm I going to on count down three, two, one? ♪ ♪ Which am I going to pick? ♪ Let's have in hortis, don't worry about translating it, just tell me is it going to be in the gardens or is it going to be into the gardens? In hortis, good in the gardens, right? You've got now in navibus will be? The in, now in the ship or in the ships? In the ships.

Okay, we're going to go now, we're going to go straight to, you're going to tell me the full translation of everything after three, you can still gain in the points.

if you want to I will too.

In silvis will be three, two, it'll be in the woods.

In Montes, we'll be, it's not one of these ones.

So therefore it will be three, two, we'll be good.

We'll be on to.

Let's say the montes, lovely.

In tarbernas, it's not es, it's not urbes will be two, one into the shops.

In urbes, will be into the cities.

In urbibus, what changes it's going to be in the city in the cities, right? We're ready, back to the singulars, what was the rule for the singulars? You had to look for an M, what letter do singular accusative end in M.

And that meant accusative going forward.

So M means into something, no M means you're in something.

In silvam was into the woods.

Nothing had changing it's just in nave, I mean, into the ship.

Shaking heads means in the ship, does in horto mean in the garden.

Nodding heads cause there's no M, so you're staying still.

Let's bring the plurals in, ho ho ho this is the big test now.

This is what you're going to be doing on your own in a few minutes.

You're going to be doing an exercise where I show you loads of preposition phrases with in plus something.

And you need to know whether it's going to be in or into, you know, what's the direction of the movement.

And also, is it singular or plural? Let's just do into forget in, lets just do singular or plural, right? Cause it's so easy, singular or plural? Let's have a look, montes, plural.

Montem, singular.

Muris, plural.

Hortos, plural.

Viam, singular.

Via, singular.

It's got an S on the end it's going to be plural, right? That's all there is about plurals for this lesson.

More difficult though, is whether it's going to be accusative or ablative.

Is it's going to be into or in, right.

Let's have a look, lets start off with montem.

It's going to be into the mountain.

So in monte will be onto nothing, in monte will be on the mountain.

Now in Montes is not in Monte ibus, in Montes will be, we're going to get it.

Great, it's going to be into or onto the mountains.

Good, S on the end.

Hortos, tough, you got it.

First of all, is it going to be into or is it going to be into or in? It's going to be into.

And it's going to be into the gardens.

Muris, is it going to be into or in? Is it going to be onto or on? It's going to be on, good on the wall or on the walls, lovely.

In viam, we can do this.

Into the street in via in the street.

In silvis in the woods, in tarbernas, into the shops, ready? In vias, does it mean into the streets or in the streets? Look at that ending.

It's not es, is ibus it's the other one.

It's going to be accusative into the streets.

In urbibus, what case is that ending there? That's going to be ablative in the cities.

In Hortis, now it's hard we have four examples here.

Okay, so first of all, look, I know it's plural the es there.

So it's going to be one of these two and I know that es ending is ablative so it's in the gardens In via nice easy one there you go in via.

There is no M on the end, so it's not accusative to be additive in the street, great.

Okay, you're going to see 10 of these prepositional phrases within, always check.

There's no excuse to getting the plurals wrong and focus.

There is always an S on the end and for the additive or accusative, just think about those endings es, irbus is ablative.

What letter do singular accusative end in? M or es or I use the process of elimination to figure it out off we go, let's have a go.

Right, so switch to a different kind of pan, so you can see how you did.

How did we do? I'd be really, really pleased if we got first of all, really well done if you've got your singulars and plurals correct.

So it's spotting those essays, the next thing, the plurals, probably the hardest thing.

Really well done if you've got into the gardens in hortos here.

The difference between in hortos and in hortis for example is tough.

More easy to spot in the singular.

If you've got anything wrong, you're going to have more opportunities to practise or just make a note of what mistakes you made and keep an eye out for that next time.

So when we look at translating prepositional phrases with additives in full sentences, sometimes the work is done for us.

For example, here we have in nave manemus and it's been mistranslated as we stay into the ship.

Now, how do we know that this is wrong? Or we could go, well, look in nave, okay.

So E on the end, that means no S so I know it's going to be singular and if it's got an M on the end of the singular, then I know that it's, that it's going to be, I've forgotten where I even started.

I know that if there's not an M on the end, then it's going to be ablative an ablative is going to be motion still staying still.

So it should be in the ship, oh yeah, so it's going to be we stay in the ship.

Well, hold on, read it, it doesn't make any sense.

We stay into the ship, your verb is giving you the clue that nave is ablative and therefore it means you're staying put, you're going to be in.

So we stay in or on the ship will be our correct translation here.

But then that's to do with some verbs, verbs like habito and verbs to do with staying still, Remain When you have in that, it's obviously going to be an ablative, you're sitting on something.

But verbs of motion are different verbs, like verbs like this, okay.

You got, don't just assume that you know, whether it's going to be into or in based on the verb.

Because if your noun covers a wide area, like a crowd or a garden or something, it could be both.

It could be either, so that's when you do need to scrutinise.

So I'm going to do this first one, have a look.

In turba ambulamus, first thing I do is the word beginnings I know in for now I'm just going to write in and I can put a to on the end if I need to.

In turba ambulamus, I know is a crowd, an ambulamus, that's not why.

then don't worry about it.

We'll do that in a bit, that's to do with walking.

Tick done, now I look at my preposition phrase and I think is it into, onto, in or on our check singular or plurals.

Is it singular or plurals first in turba, there is no S on the end.

So I know it's going to be just like, I don't need to add an S there for crowd.

Now, my main thing here is whether it's going to be into the crowd or in the crowd.

Now, if there were an M on the end here, I would know it was accusative.

And I would know that we'll be into the crowd because there's no M there.

I know it's ablative and therefore it's going to be in the crowd, so I don't actually change anything, so that's done.

We're fine, then I look at my word endings, if anything other than the preposition phrase.

And in this case, it's just my verb over here ambulamus and I check in this case, it's going to be person and tense most on the end, OST, most I, you, she, we and doing is check the tense is there any bar or V there, no present tense.

And in crowd, we walk, this should say non verb act and your preposition phrase, you're going to need to add a sort of any point that makes the most sense.

And in this case we've actually just got verb, preposition and phrase.

I know I've not listed it down here, which is just that's because it sort of could go anywhere, just put it where it makes sense.

As long as you don't split up the preposition and noun that's the worst possible thing you could do.

In crowd we walk, make that make sense in English.

We walk in the crowd and we're there.

Okay, step four is done.

Next one in nave fugiunt.

What do we think? A or B, five seconds.

And let's have a look, so I should mention every word has been translated correctly, maybe.

So like the step one's been done, okay.

We've got in, we got ship and we've got flee, alright.

In fact, step three has been done because unt is right, they flee.

What we're looking for here is this preposition phrase.

Now, if I had an M on the end, I know it would be accusative and therefore it would be motion towards.

We don't have an M so we know it's going to be ablative and therefore it's going to be B, they flee in the ship.

Time for you to have go at one on your own.

Remember how you did, you had loads of practise on doing preposition phrases, stuff like that, just now you just did that task on it.

So use, look that bit first, get your ingredients.

Triple check this bit, have a look at that V over there, put the whole thing together.

Two minutes, what do we think? Off you go.

Okay, let's have a look and run through this together.

So my first thing is in wood and walk, done? Then, well done if you got that far.

Now, I have a look at my end and I think what am I going to do? Actually, singular and plural first, all right.

And so vas, I know it's going to be plural, so it's going to be in the woods.

So that's bit done.

Then I think, well, what's this? So is is ibus is ablative, that will be in the woods, but I don't have that, I've got in silvas, so I know that's accusative.

So I know actually I need to add to in here, into woods, done.

Then I go to my word endings, it's just a verb in this case.

I'm looking for person and tense, when I say V you say it and who did ambulavi it was e so it's going to be I.

And then I won't write out the whole thing now, because you can clearly tell that the sentence means I walked into the woods.

Nodding heads or shaking heads if you got that right.

Nodding heads, if you didn't, as I always say, do not worry about it.

Just take stock of where things went wrong.

Was it that we didn't know that as is an accusative ending? Well, you're going to see a whole bunch of that, words of that ending in as so make sure you get it right that time, right? Let's have a look, some huge press pause to complete a batch of sentences, four sentences now with preposition phrases in, let's see how we do and pressing pause now.

Okay, now press pause here to do that challenge, have a look at that.

Okay, now switching to a different colour of pen so we can mark our answers, there you go.

Let's just see if I can talk through anything where might've been different as always, if you are translating anything with you in it, please do tell me if it's singular or plural.

If you're translating this as he or it, I went for she, then that's absolutely fine.

Onto the ships is fine there, that's absolutely fine.

Was looking for, is fine for me for any synonyms acquirer.

And we run down, you could tell, you can go for from is another meaning of day, but let's go for down the mountains and into the cities, lovely, right? Okay, and press pause here to create the challenge, If you did do the challenge, I hope you did, fantastic.

And let's have a look once you've marked, correct it, those answers complete the exit quiz.

All that's left for us to do is to say goodbye to one another and I'm going to move over here and then we're going to say valete.

Now let's just get this right off the top, I'm just very quickly I'm going to point, and you're going to tell me if it's going to be accusative or ablative.

So what's this one, is that accusative or ablative? That's accusative that one? Ablative.

That one, ablative.

That one, ablative.

That, accusative.

Did we get the idea? In hortum, into the garden.

In Horto, in the garden.

In viam, into the street.

In via, in the streets.

Bear that in mind for your future translations and also for the translation lesson, which will be coming up.

I'll see you there.

Very nice, well done.