Well the truth is that you will have several ways to construct the tense of a verb depending upon which conjugation a verb is in.

Well before we can show you how to conjugate a verb, a few terms must be defined.
What is a conjugation? A conjugation is a subdivision of a verb. Words in English as well as Latin are grouped according to how you will do certain things to them. As an example, how do you normally make a noun plural in English? By adding “s” to its singular form? Always? No. Nouns ending in the letter “y”, change the “y” to “i” and then you add “es”. (fly becomes flies). So there are two ways to make plurals in English? No, not always. Sometimes you have to change the entire word. What is the plural of man? Mans? No; its men. Well I guess then there are three ways to make a plural in English. I wish I could say it’s so. But wrong again. There are some words that you keep the same. Their plural form is exactly the same as their singular form. (sheep, sheep). So in English, there seems to be four different ways to form a plural. Form 1, you as “s” to the singular. Form 2, you change the “y” to “i” and then add “es”. Form 3, you learn a new word for the plural. And form 4, you keep the word the same for both the singular and plural. In mandarin you use measure words to group nouns. “ben” for books. (e.g. yi ben shu) you don’t say “yi ben ren”. How do you learn these patterns or groupings? You have to memorize them. It’s as simple as that.

Now in Latin there are 4 conjugations or groupings of verbs. Now they go by some very technical terminology. The first grouping is called the first conjugation. The second is referred to as the second conjugation. The third grouping is referred to as the third conjugation. And guess what the last one is called? (Wait for their response) Have you taken latin before? That’s correct, the last is called the fourth conjugation. Now this is important!!! What you do in one conjugation or grouping, you do not necessarily do in the other conjugations or groupings. Just as you didn’t always do the same thing in how we formed plurals in English or we didn’t always use the same measure word for all nouns in Chinese, so we do not always do the same thing to all verbs in Latin. Understand?

Okay.

For the moment, we will only be dealing with the first and second conjugation. Why? Because they are similar in how they form their present tenses.

In Chinese, when you learn a verb, there is only one form. As an example, to have one learns “you”. “You” is present tense. Wo you yi ben shu. Ni you yi ben shu. Ta you yi ben shu. One doesn’t change anything about “you” when you use it, whether it be a different number of people, such as, women you yi ben shu, or a different tense such as mingtian wo you yi ben shu. How do you learn this? You memorize it.

In English, when you learn a verb you really have to learn three forms to learn a verb correctly and to use it properly in a sentence. To merely learn the word “run” and the English word would do yourself an in justice. To learn the word properly one would learn run ran run…the present, the past, and perfect form. How do you learn this? You memorize it.

Much like English, to learn a verb properly you must learn more than one part. In Latin, you must learn four parts for most verbs.

For a verb we will learn the first person present active indicative followed by the present infinitive, then the perfect active and lastly the supine or the perfect passive participle. I prefer calling it the supine because it’s easier to say as well as easier to write. But a supine is a perfect passive participle. Just another word for the same thing. (e.g. Amo, Amare, Amavi, Amatus; Laudo laudare, laudavi , laudatus; puto, putare, putavi, putatus; erro, errare, erravi, erratus; porto, portare, portavi, portatus. Are you noticing a pattern? You’re right… o, are, avi, atus. That is the pattern for the principal parts of a verb in the first conjugation. In fact, it is so regular that only three or four verbs in the first conjugation differ from this pattern. So if you didn’t know the four parts of a verb but you know it is in the first conjugation, guess o, are, avi, atus and you’ll probably be right. Example Pull out a piece of paper and write out the principle parts for this verb in latin appropinquo 1st . Wait for all to finish. Now call for a volunteer to give the principal parts. Then write down the its parts on the board.

Okay, I can write out the principle parts for a first conjugation verb. Whoopee, so what? What can I do with it? Well, you can do a lot. You can form the present tense of any first conjugation verb. Let look at the verb to love in Latin.
To love is amo amare amavi amatus. Not amo but all four parts. Now that I have all four parts I can begin. The first step is to copy the first word down.
Amo
That is the only thing that the first word is used for…the first person singular present active indicative.
To form the remainder of the persons you go to the second verb of your pattern, remove the final re and then add you present active endings for a verb.

So we copy Amo down then go to the second form which is amare and drop off the final re which leaves us with ama. To that we add our endings.

 Amo      Amamus  I love        We love
 Amas     Amatis  you love      You love
 Amat     Amant   he, she, it    loves they love

So for the present active indicative tense, the first person singular is given to you, you only have to copy it down. For the remainder you go to the 2nd principle part, drop off the re and add the remaining endings. That’s also how you know which conjugation a verb is in. If the 2nd principle part of a verb ends in “are” then the verb is in the first conjugation.

Try porto. Give me the principle parts of the verb for porto and then form it in the present active indicative.

How does this help us? Well in Latin the verb, as I mentioned previously is normally at the end. The exception is linking or copulative verbs, like is, are, were. So you go to the end of the sentence and find the verb. If the verb ends in “o”, then I know the subject is I and I don’t have to go any further looking for a subject. If the verb ends in “mus”, then I know the subject is we and I don’t have to look any further for a subject. If the verb end in “s” then I know the subject is you and I don’t have to look any further. If the ending on the verb is”tis”, then I know the subject is you plural and I don’t have to look any further. If the verb ending is “t or nt”, the first step I want to take is to look for a singular or plural subject respectively (i.e. “t” singular, “nt” plural). If there aren’t any, then the subject is either he, she, it or they. So in reality, the only time I have too look for an expressed subject, like John, the dog, Baseball players etc. is when the verb ends in “ t” or “nt”.

Let’s do some more first conjugation verbs.

The second conjugation is similar in nature. The pattern for a second conjugation is eo, ere with a long mark over the first e, ui, itus. How do you know a verb is in the second conjugation? The second principle part or the infinitive is a long ere.

To form a present active indicateve tense of a verb in the second conjugation you do exactly the same thing that you did to form one in the first conjugation. It’s just that easy. So let’s look at one
Habeo, habere, habui, habitus.

  Habeo habemus      I have                    we have
  Habes habetis        You have                you have
  Habet habent.        He, she or it has    they have

The pattern for the principle parts of the second conjugation is eo ere ui itus. The second always has an eo instead of just an o, but it does end in o. The infinitive is a long ere instead of are. The third principle or the perfect stem is ui about 85% of the time. Notice that it’s not as regular as the first conjugation but when in doubt guess the pattern. You won’t always be right, but you will be right most of the time. And the forth principle part for the second is itus and it’s atus for the first conjugation. They are very similar in nature.

Let’s do a couple more for practice, and then we’ll go back to the workbook. Remember to memorize this information. You will see this again on a quiz or test.

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