Latin for Beginners · Lesson III · Part 1: First principles

3. The five cases

Goal: Your child can name the five Latin cases and say what each one usually means in English.

⏱ About 35 minutes · 7 steps

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You'll need

  • The book, open to this lesson
  • A notebook for Latin, and a pencil

What's in the book

Explains that Latin shows how a noun is used by its ending, not by word order. A table sets English "who, whose, whom" beside the Latin domina in all its cases, singular and plural, with the case names. An exercise asks for the number and case of 27 forms.

The lesson, step by step

  1. Review

    Drill the Lesson II words with the cards. Ask for a few plurals.

  2. The new idea: endings do the work

    In English, "The lady loves the daughter" and "The daughter loves the lady" mean different things because of word order. In Latin the ending tells you who does what, so the words can go in any order. Each form of a noun is called a case.

  3. Read the table

    Look at the table in section 33. The Latin side gives the singular of domina:

    domina, dominae, dominae, dominam, dominā

    and the plural:

    dominae, dominārum, dominīs, dominās, dominīs

    The cases, in the book's order, are nominative (the subject), genitive (of, 's), dative (to or for), accusative (the object) and ablative (from, with, by, in).

  4. Say it aloud

    Say the whole declension of domina together, down the singular, then down the plural, five times. Make it a chant. Hold the long ā at the end of the ablative dominā a little longer.

  5. Match case to meaning

    Point to a form and ask what it means: dominārum? "of the ladies". dominīs? "to or for the ladies", or "from, with, by, in the ladies".

  6. The exercise

    Do section 34 together. For each form, your child says singular or plural, and which case. Some forms can be more than one case (dominae can be genitive or dative singular, or nominative plural). Saying all the possibilities is the right answer.

  7. Wrap up

    Your child says the domina chant from memory, singular and plural.

Afterwards

Say the domina chant every day this week. It is the pattern for every word in this lesson group.

Tip

Take two days if your child needs it. Knowing these five cases well makes the rest of the book much easier.

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