Learning Latin involves more than memorizing vocabulary. When reading a sentence from the Vulgate, the word endings show how each word interacts with the entire sentence. Reading Latin becomes a step by step process of analysis. Consider the opening of the Gospel according to John: In prīncipiō erat Verbum. The sentence means, “In the beginning was the Word.”

Find the Verb

Verbs express action or a state of being. Here the verb is erat, “was.” This is the Latin imperfect tense, which tells us the action was in the past over a period of time, “imperfect” as opposed to “perfect”. Finding the verb first provides a lot of valuable information about the meaning being conveyed in the sentence. For instance, the verb helps identify the subject. A Latin verb must agree with the subject in person and number. The ending of a Latin verb will reveal this information.

Observe the Endings

A case is the form of a noun that helps show its task or function within the sentence. Since the verb has identified and revealed the person and number of the subject, the next step is to identify any explicit subjects. The word “erat” is in the third person, singular form, so the subject must agree. The word Verbum, “Word,” is in the nominative case, it is third-person and singular. The nominative case identifies the subject of the sentence, the person or thing the sentence is about. Here Verbum, “Word,” is the subject. Once the verb and subject are identified, any direct object and other words can then be identified as well. The word prīncipiō, “beginning,” together with the preposition in, forms a prepositional phrase that tells when the Word, the subject, was, “in the beginning”.

Build the Translation

The English language is built around the subject-verb-object construction. Now that the grammatical forms of the Latin language have been deconstructed, the English language translation needs to be constructed. The Latin meanings have to be arranged into the specific order that English follows but Latin makes flexible. This is why grammatical analysis is extremely important for Latin comprehension. The three step process can be described as:

1. Deconstruct the Latin

2. Rearrange the order

3. Reconstruct the English

Return to the Sentence

The overview of this method is: find the verb, notice the endings and their roles, deconstruct their meaning, rearrange the order, then build an English sentence that reflects the Latin meaning. With practice, the student may begin to recognize how grammar carries meaning in Sacred Scripture.

Begin reading the Vulgate.

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