Latin for Beginners · Lesson XX · Part 4: Verbs: the active voice
20. Imperfect tense of amō and moneō
Goal: Your child forms the imperfect with the tense sign -ba- and knows that it describes something going on in the past.
You'll need
- The book, open to this lesson
- The special vocabulary page for this lesson (near the back of the book; the lesson tells you the page)
- A notebook for Latin, and a pencil
- Index cards for new words (optional)
What's in the book
Tense signs, the imperfect of amō and moneō, and what the imperfect means. Then forms to translate both ways, and the first part of the story of Niobe.
The lesson, step by step
Review
Conjugate moneō in the present.
Tense signs
Latin adds a "tense sign" between the stem and the ending, in place of an English helper word like "was". The imperfect's sign is -ba-: amā + ba + m = amābam, "I was loving".
The forms
amābam, amābās, amābat, amābāmus, amābātis, amābant
monēbam, monēbās, monēbat, monēbāmus, monēbātis, monēbant
The a of -ba- is short before -m, -t and -nt.
What it means
Section 134: the imperfect describes an action as going on in the past ("I was walking"), or a past situation.
Exercises
Section 135, Exercise I. Two of the lines:
Vidēbāmus, dēsīderābat, mātūrābās.
Dabant, vocābātis, dēlēbāmus.
Then Exercise II, English to Latin.
Vocabulary and story
Learn the special vocabulary (it has fōrma, beauty; rēgīna, queen; poena, punishment; septem, seven). Then read the first part of "Niobe and her Children" in section 136. One sentence:
Nam habēbat septem fīliōs et septem fīliās.
Wrap up
Your child conjugates vocō in the imperfect.
Answers to the book's problems
Exercise I: 1. We were seeing, he was longing for, you were hastening. 2. They were giving, you (plural) were calling, we were destroying. 4. They were ordering, you (plural) were hastening, we were carrying. 5. You were giving, they were telling, you (plural) were laboring. 6. They were seeing, you were moving, we were announcing. 7. He was killing, I was moving, he was having, you (plural) were preparing.
Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.