Forming the present active tense of a first conjugation Latin verb.  


Latin verbs come in four different types or classes. Each class of Latin verb is called a conjugation. There are four  conjugations. A verb is put into a particular class  because of its infinitive.

  To the right are the four types of infinitives, which define the four different conjugations.

 
 Because of the limitations of HTML code, I can't easily put the line (called a Macron) over the "a" in the "are" of "amare." Luckily, since all infinitives that have 'are'  are 1st conjugation verbs, this will not be a problem at this point.
 

To create a verb form, you must add the stem to the personal endings.
These are called Personal Endings because they perform some of the same functions that personal pronouns like "I", "you". "he", and "they" perform. Thus in Latin if you want to write "I love.", you can simply write "Amo."
 
Here are the personal endings.

  Singular   Plural  
1st person -o -mus we
2nd person -s you  -tis you (pl.)
3rd person -t he/she/it -nt they
2nd Person  
Imperative
-a you! -ate you (pl.)!

 

The infinitive ending is -are and an infinitive is translated thusly : "to love, to run, to hope etc".

To create the full verb form, you first remove the -re from the infinitive, for example amare or errare, and then add the personal endings seen above.

The one slight exception appears to be the first personal singular, such as amo, erro, laudo, etc. The reason the form is not amao, errao and laudao, etc., is that the o-sound absorbs the a-sound , and together they make another o-sound.

Now let us see how various verbs are formed.
Select a verb and see its root and basic meaning.

 

Root                  Basic meaning 

Once you have selected a verb, click on the form you want to see. You must select a verb for the form below to work correctly.
 

 
The verb form  The definition 

   

  CLICK HERE  if you would like to go to a Javascript drill that will quiz you over your ability to translate these and other first conjugation Latin verb forms in the present active tense.

 CLICK HERE  if you would like to go to a longer version of this drill.

CLICK HERE to go to a short drill where you must supply the Latin verb form for the English verb form.

Copyright May 1999 Jean Alvares

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