First and second declension: rosa and dominus
Most words in -a follow rosa; those in -us, -er and -um follow dominus, puer and templum. Stem plus ending gives every case, singular and plural.
Why
Your word list says silva, silvae (f.) and amīcus, amīcī (m.). Why two forms, and what do you do with them?
Those two forms are a key. The genitive shows the stem and the group: silv- belongs to the first declension, amīc- to the second. With that stem and one row of endings you make all ten forms yourself.
So you do not have to learn every word separately. Know rosa and dominus by heart and you can decline hundreds of words: puella, via, servus, equus. And you recognise them in any text, even in the plural or the dative.
See it
Pick rosa, dominus, puer, ager or templum. A stem block and an ending block click together into every case, singular and plural, with the gender shown.
Description of the picture
At the top five buttons with the words rosa, dominus, puer, ager and templum, and a label with the gender: f for rosa, m for dominus, puer and ager, n for templum. Below, a table with two columns, singular and plural, and a row per case from nominative to ablative. In each box a grey stem block, such as ros or domin, slides against a coloured ending block, such as am or orum. For rosa you see rosa, rosae, rosae, rosam, rosa with a long a, and in the plural rosae, rosarum, rosis, rosas, rosis. With puer the e stays in the stem: pueri. With ager it drops out: agri. With templum the nominative and accusative are the same, and the plural ends in a.
Get it
To decline a word, take the genitive singular, remove the ending and you have the stem. Ros-ae gives ros-, domin-ī gives domin-. After that stem you stick the endings of the right declension.
The first declension has a genitive in -ae. Almost all its words are feminine (rosa, puella, via), but a few jobs are masculine: agricola (farmer) and nauta (sailor).
The second declension has a genitive in -ī. Masculine words end in -us (dominus) or -er (puer, ager). With -er, check the genitive: puerī keeps the e, agrī loses it.
Neuter words in -um (templum, dōnum) follow the second declension with one rule of their own: the nominative and accusative are always the same, and in the plural both end in -a: templa.
Stem = genitive minus ending. First declension: -a, -ae, -ae, -am, -ā; plural -ae, -ārum, -īs, -ās, -īs. Second: -us, -ī, -ō, -um, -ō; plural -ī, -ōrum, -īs, -ōs, -īs. Neuter: nominative = accusative, plural -a.
Examples
rosārum
Genitive plural of rosa: of the roses.
dominō
Dative or ablative singular of dominus: to the master, or by the master.
puerī
With puer the e stays: genitive singular or nominative plural.
agrōs
With ager the e drops out: agrōs, the fields as direct object.
templa
Neuter plural: the temples, as subject or as direct object.
agricolae
First declension, yet masculine: agricola is the farmer.
Worked example
Make the accusative plural of servus, servī (m.).
The genitive servī ends in -ī: second declension, and the stem is serv-.
Servus is masculine, so the accusative plural is -ōs.
Stem plus ending: serv + ōs.
- Answer
servōs
Do it
Choose a level. You get a new exercise each time, checked straight away.
Pitfalls
Wrong: Agricola is feminine because it ends in -a.
The ending tells the declension, not the gender. A farmer is a man.
Right: agricola, agricolae (m.): first declension, masculine.
Wrong: The genitive of ager is agerī.
With words in -er the genitive shows whether the e stays. Your list gives ager, agrī.
Right: agrī, and so on: agrō, agrum, agrōs.
Wrong: Templum is always a subject, because it looks like the nominative.
With neuter words the nominative and accusative are the same. The sentence decides.
Right: Puer templum videt: here templum is the direct object.
In real life
- Latin plurals live on in English: datum and data, curriculum and curricula, alumnus and alumni.
- The label in the garden centre speaks Latin: Rosa canina is the dog rose, with the same rosa as in your table.
- The word agenda is a neuter plural: literally the things that have to be done.
At the table
Play Stem and Tail. A parent names a word with its genitive, like equus, equī. The child says the stem and taps a case; together you make the form. Whoever gets three forms right in a row picks the next word.
Something to do or talk about together, for parents and children. Mistakes are welcome.