English-to-Latin Composition: The Restricted Scope

Three sentences, ten marks

If you take this option, you are given **three short English sentences** and you write them in Latin. That is the whole task. It sounds harder than recognising forms, and in one way it is: you have to produce every ending yourself, with nothing to copy from. But it comes with something the other option does not have: a **deliberately small box**. The vocabulary, the tenses, the declensions and even the sentence shapes are restricted, and once you know where the walls are, you know exactly what to revise.

Exactly what you are allowed

Five restrictions. Learn these and the task becomes finite.

Which of these can appear?

Select the TWO things you might genuinely need in this question.

• An imperfect tense verb, such as "was carrying"
• A direct question, such as "Why is the master silent?"
• A passive verb, such as "the letter was carried"
• A subordinate clause, such as "because the slave was afraid"

The word you cannot use

A sentence asks you to write "the soldier". You know **miles** from your reading. What is the problem, and what do you do?

• miles is third declension, which is outside the restricted list, so the sentence set for you will use a noun you do have, such as vir or servus
• Nothing: use miles anyway, since you know the form
• Leave the word in English
• Invent a first declension version of it

English shows it by order, Latin by ending

The restriction removes most of the grammar. What it does not remove is the thing that actually makes composition hard.

Decide in this order

You have an English sentence to turn into Latin. Put the decisions in the order that avoids mistakes.

• Find the subject: who or what is doing it
• Find the object, if there is one: who or what it is being done to
• Put the subject in the nominative and the object in the accusative
• Decide the tense from the English, and pick present, imperfect or perfect
• Make any adjective agree with its noun, and check every ending

Build it word by word

Write "The good master calls the slave" in Latin.

Match each English phrase to its Latin

Only three tenses to build

Every verb you write will be present, imperfect or perfect, indicative and active. Using **porto** as the model: **Present** (does, is doing): *portat*, he carries; *portant*, they carry. **Imperfect** (was doing, used to do): *portabat*, he was carrying; *portabant*, they were carrying. The **-ba-** in the middle is the marker. **Perfect** (did, has done): *portavit*, he carried; *portaverunt*, they carried. Read the English carefully. "Was carrying" is imperfect and "carried" is perfect, and choosing between them is worth a mark on its own.

Complete the Latin

The girl was carrying water: puella aquam _____. The angry master frightened the slaves: dominus _____ servos _____. The sailor walked into the garden: nauta in _____ ambulavit. Why is the master silent? cur dominus _____?

Which adjective fits?

You are writing "the happy girl carries the letter". Which form of *laetus* do you need, and why?

• laeta, because it must agree with puella, which is feminine, singular and nominative
• laetus, because that is the form on the vocabulary list
• laetam, to match the accusative epistulam
• laetae, because the sentence is about a girl

One sentence, decision by decision

**"The angry master was frightening the good slaves."** **Subject:** the master, so *dominus*, nominative singular. **His adjective:** angry describes the master, so *iratus* takes the masculine nominative singular ending to agree with him. **Object:** the slaves, so *servos*, accusative plural. Their adjective *bonos* agrees with them: masculine, accusative, plural. **Tense:** "was frightening" is imperfect, so *terrebat*. **dominus iratus servos bonos terrebat.** Five decisions, taken in order, and none of them needed anything outside the restricted list.

Which word becomes accusative?

An English sentence to be translated. Tap the ONE word that will be accusative in your Latin.

• The
• sailor
• was carrying the
• letter
• into the
• house
• .

Ten marks, three sentences

You have chosen this option and the paper is in front of you. Work through the first sentence.

• The sentence is "The good sailor was walking into the house." What do you settle first?
• "Into the house" needs a preposition. Which, and with which case?
• You have written nauta bonus in villam ambulabat, and you have two minutes left. What is the best use of them?

Your turn: translate and justify

Translate these into Latin, then explain your choices: (1) The girls were calling the master. (2) The good sailor carried the water. (3) Why is the slave silent?

• Give your three Latin sentences
• For sentence 1, say why the master is in the accusative
• For sentence 2, say which tense you chose and how the English told you
• For sentence 3, say what makes it a direct question and why that keeps it in scope