Building Vocabulary: Verbs by Conjugation

Endings do the talking

A Latin verb tells you **who** is doing it and **when** through its ending. `porto` is "I carry"; `portamus` is "we carry". No pronoun is needed. But the endings are not identical for every verb. Verbs fall into four families, called **conjugations**, and each family builds its endings on a slightly different vowel. Knowing which family a verb belongs to is what lets you read a form you have never seen before.

Four conjugations, four infinitives

The infinitive is what names the family, which is why a dictionary prints it beside the verb.

Match each infinitive to its family

Name the family

Your list gives **custodio, custodire** (guard). Which conjugation is it?

• 4th conjugation
• 1st conjugation
• 2nd conjugation
• 3rd conjugation

What the list actually gives you

Your vocabulary list prints the **first person singular**: porto, habeo, mitto, audio. From that form alone, one family gives itself away every time.

Spot the second conjugation

Select the TWO verbs that must be 2nd conjugation, judging from the form your list gives.

• terreo (frighten)
• taceo (be silent)
• traho (drag)
• festino (hurry)

The ending that will catch you out

If **-eo** means 2nd, you would expect **-io** to mean 4th. It does not, and this is the single most common slip on Latin verbs. **4th conjugation:** audio, audire (hear); venio, venire (come); dormio, dormire (sleep); invenio, invenire (find). **3rd conjugation, but still ending -io:** capio, capere (take); facio, facere (make); fugio, fugere (flee); conspicio, conspicere (catch sight of). Both groups end -io in the form your list prints. Only the **infinitive** separates them, so these are the verbs to learn as a pair rather than as a single word.

capio or audio?

Both **capio** and **audio** end in -io. How do you tell which conjugation each one belongs to?

• By the infinitive: capere ends -ere so capio is 3rd, while audire ends -ire so audio is 4th
• By the meaning: verbs about the senses are 4th
• By the length of the word
• Both are 4th, because both end -io

Five verbs, three lives

Five verbs from your list. Give the meaning of each. Three lives.

Put the rule into a sentence

A verb's conjugation is named by its _____. An infinitive ending -are belongs to the _____ conjugation, and one ending -ire belongs to the _____. Your vocabulary list prints the first person singular instead, where an ending in _____ reliably means 2nd conjugation. An ending in _____ does NOT reliably mean 4th, because capio and facio end that way and are 3rd.

State the safe method

Build a sentence that describes how to identify a verb's conjugation reliably.

Parse a verb you half-know

A verb form you do not recognise appears in a translation passage. Put the steps in the order that gets you to its meaning.

• Strip the ending to find the stem you recognise
• Recall the verb from your list, with its infinitive
• Use that infinitive to name the conjugation
• Read the ending against that conjugation to get person and number
• Decide the tense, and so what the verb is saying

Match each verb to what it means

One form, worked through

You meet **fugiunt** in a passage and do not recognise it at once. "The stem looks like fugi-, which I know from **fugio, fugere**, to flee. The infinitive ends -ere, so it is 3rd conjugation, not 4th, even though fugio ends -io. The ending -unt is third person plural. So fugiunt is "they flee"." The whole thing turned on one decision: fugere, not fugire. Get that wrong and you are reading the ending against the wrong family.

Your turn: warn the year below

A student in the year below has learned that -eo means 2nd conjugation and has decided that -io must therefore mean 4th. Explain why that will go wrong and what they should learn instead.

• Say what actually names a verb's conjugation
• Explain why the -eo tell is safe
• Give two verbs ending -io that are NOT 4th conjugation
• Explain what they should learn with every verb so the problem disappears