Latin for Beginners · Lesson XXXI · Part 6: The perfect tenses

31. Principal parts and stems; the perfect tenses of sum

Goal: Your child knows the four principal parts and the three stems, and conjugates sum in the perfect, pluperfect and future perfect.

⏱ About 40 minutes · 6 steps

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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

The four principal parts of a Latin verb, the three stems made from them, the endings of the perfect, and the perfect, pluperfect and future perfect of sum. Then a dialogue between three boys, Titus, Marcus and Quintus.

The lesson, step by step

  1. Review

    Give a quick synopsis of amō in the third person singular, active and passive.

  2. Principal parts

    Every Latin verb has four principal parts. You learn them together, the way English speakers learn "sing, sang, sung". From them come three stems. The perfect stem is the third part without its final -ī. For sum the parts are:

    sum, esse, fuī

  3. The perfect endings

    The perfect has its own endings: -ī, -istī, -it, -imus, -istis, -ērunt or -ēre.

    fuī, fuistī, fuit, fuimus, fuistis, fuērunt

    "I have been" or "I was".

  4. Pluperfect and future perfect

    Section 187 notes that the pluperfect looks like fu- + eram (fueram, "I had been") and the future perfect like fu- + erō (fuerō, "I shall have been"). One trap: "they will have been" is fuerint, not fuerunt.

  5. Say them aloud

    Chant all three tenses. The book warns that the accent moves around in the perfect; say them slowly.

  6. The dialogue

    Learn the special vocabulary (aurum, gold; mora, delay; nāvigium, boat; ventus, wind; nāvigō, sail; sine, without). Read the dialogue in section 188 in parts. It begins:

    Ubi fuistis, Tite et Quīnte?

    Ego in meō lūdō fuī et Quīntus in suō lūdō fuit.

Afterwards

Two days: principal parts and the forms of sum on day one, the dialogue on day two.

Tip

From here on, learning the principal parts of every new verb is the most important habit. The book says so plainly.

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