Latin Exercitia — I: The Case Forge
A new small strand: pure drill documents, no new grammar. This one forges noun endings. Each sentence below is English with every noun labelled for the form it needs — gender, number, case — and your job is to produce the declined Latin, aloud or on paper, before opening the reveal. The verb and any connectives are supplied in brackets, deliberately: the forge heats nouns only, so nothing else competes for attention.
Working method: build the sentence, then check against the reveal — and run Vol. 0.a's five constants as a quick self-audit first (does my accusative end in -m? is my genitive plural wearing -um?). Endings embed through production, not recognition; this is the document where the tables in Vols I–III start living in the hand rather than on the page.
Labels read: (m/f/n · sg/pl · case). Word banks give dictionary forms at the start of each round.
Round I — first and second declensions
Bank: puella, -ae f. (girl) · amīcus, -ī m. (friend) · fīlius, -ī m. (son) · dea, -ae f. (goddess) · mustela, -ae f. (weasel) · casa, -ae f. (house) · templum, -ī n. (temple) · dōnum, -ī n. (gift) · ānulus, -ī m. (ring) · aqua, -ae f. (water)
1. The (m sg nom) friend gives the (n sg acc) gift to the (f sg dat) girl. [gives = dat]
Reveal
Amīcus puellae dōnum dat. — Doer in -us, target in -um, recipient in -ae. The dative -ae and genitive -ae are twins in the first declension; only the sentence's logic separates to the girl from of the girl (Vol. III.c territory).
2. The (f sg nom) weasel takes the (m sg gen) friend's (m sg acc) ring. [takes = capit]
Reveal
Mustela ānulum amīcī capit. — Note the order: Latin happily says the ring of-the-friend, genitive trailing its noun. Constant 1: the target ends in -m.
3. We walk with the (f sg abl) girl to the (n sg acc) temple. [walk = ambulāmus; with = cum; to = ad]
Reveal
Cum puellā ad templum ambulāmus. — The prepositions did the case-picking for you (Vol. I): cum → ablative -ā (long — the macron is the case), ad → accusative.
4. (f sg voc) Girl, where is the (f sg gen) goddess's (n sg nom) temple? [where is = ubi est]
Reveal
Puella, ubi est templum deae? — First-declension vocative = nominative, so the only work was resisting the urge to change it. Templum is nominative here: it's the subject of est.
5. The (m pl nom) sons give (n pl acc) gifts to the (f pl dat) goddesses. [give = dant]
Reveal
Fīliī deābus dōna dant. — Two catches. Dōna: the neuter law (constant 5) — plural in -a even in the accusative. And deābus: goddesses take a special dative/ablative plural to avoid vanishing into deīs alongside the gods — one of Latin's few concessions to clarity over pattern, and the feminine equivalent of getting a seat on the bus.
6. The (f pl nom) girls are in the (f sg abl) house of the (m pl gen) friends. [are = sunt; in = in]
Reveal
Puellae in casā amīcōrum sunt. — Constant 3: of the crowd ends -um (-ōrum here). In + ablative because they're located, not moving (the in/sub rule).
Round II — third declension and mixed
Bank: mīles, mīlitis m. (soldier) · māter, mātris f. (mother) · rēx, rēgis m. (king) · flūmen, flūminis n. (river) · nox, noctis f. (night) · urbs, urbis f. (city) · hostis, hostis m. (enemy) · pōns, pontis m. (bridge) — plus Round I's bank.
7. The (m sg nom) king gives (f sg acc) water to the (m pl dat) soldiers. [gives = dat]
Reveal
Rēx mīlitibus aquam dat. — The bus arrives (constant 4): third-declension dative plural -ibus. Mixing declensions in one sentence is normal Latin weather; the constants hold across the join.
8. The (m pl nom) soldiers guard the (f sg gen) city's (m sg acc) bridge. [guard = custōdiunt]
Reveal
Mīlitēs pontem urbis custōdiunt. — Urbis: the genitive singular that reveals the stem, exactly why dictionaries list it (Vol. I). Somewhere on the northern frontier, this sentence was daily life.
9. By (f sg abl) night we cross the (n sg acc) river. [cross = trānsīmus]
Reveal
Nocte flūmen trānsīmus. — The stretch item: time-when takes a bare ablative, no preposition. Nocte — "at night" — with nothing in front of it; the case alone carries "when". A new trick smuggled into a drill, as is traditional.
10. The (m pl gen) enemies' (m sg nom) king destroys the (m sg acc) bridge. [destroys = dēlet]
Reveal
Rēx hostium pontem dēlet. — Hostium, not hostum: hostis belongs to the i-stem family, which pads its genitive plural to -ium. Constant 3 still ends in -um; the i is upholstery.
11. (f sg voc) Mother, the (m pl nom) soldiers are in the (f sg abl) city! [are = sunt]
Reveal
Māter, mīlitēs in urbe sunt! — Third-declension vocative = nominative, every time. The sentence itself is most of Romano-British history in six words.
12. Without the (m sg abl) king, the (m pl nom) soldiers walk to the (n sg acc) river. [walk = ambulant; without = sine; to = ad]
Reveal
Sine rēge mīlitēs ad flūmen ambulant. — Sine is an ablative trigger (Vol. I); rēge with the third declension's short -e, where Round I's nouns wore -ā and -ō. Same case, different tailoring.
Round III — fourth and fifth declensions, adjectives, pointers
Bank: exercitus, -ūs m. (army) · diēs, diēī m. (day) · manus, -ūs f. (hand — feminine, one of the fourth's surprises) · dux, ducis m. (leader) · fīnis, fīnis m. (end) — plus magnus, -a, -um · fortis, forte · hic / ille (Vols III, III.a) and all previous banks.
13. On that (m sg abl) day the (m sg nom) army crosses the (n sg acc) river. [crosses = trānsit; that = ille]
Reveal
Illō diē exercitus flūmen trānsit. — Bare ablative of time again (illō diē, Vol. II's own example), and the fifth declension's -ē. Exercitus here is nominative — the -us that looks second-declension until its genitive gives it away.
14. I see the (f sg acc) great mother. [see = videō]
Reveal
Mātrem magnam videō. — Vol. III's central hurdle, forged: the endings don't match visually (-em / -am) but case, number and gender all agree. If this one came out without hesitation, agreement has stopped being cosmetic in your head.
15. The (m sg nom) brave soldier gives his (f sg dat) mother a (n sg acc) gift. [gives = dat; brave = fortis]
Reveal
Mīles fortis mātrī dōnum dat. — Three declensions in one sentence (third, third, second), all obeying the constants. Mātrī: third-declension dative -ī.
16. The (m sg nom) leader of the (m sg gen) army is brave. [is = est]
Reveal
Dux exercitūs fortis est. — The -ūs genitive: the one ending that tells fourth-declension exercitus apart from every second-declension lookalike (Vol. II's warning, now load-bearing). Fortis agrees with dux — nominative, despite sitting next to a genitive.
17. This (f sg nom) weasel grabs at those (m pl acc) rings. [grabs at = captat; this = hic, those = ille]
Reveal
Haec mustela illōs ānulōs captat. — Both pointers dressing to match their nouns, three ways each (Vol. III.a). Haec because mustela is feminine; illōs wearing the same -ōs as its noun, for once cosmetically as well as grammatically.
18. We await the (m sg acc) end of the (m sg gen) day. [await = exspectāmus]
Reveal
Fīnem diēī exspectāmus. — The fifth declension's double-ē genitive, and a sentence for the last mile of the Wednesday train.
Extending the forge
The pattern rolls on indefinitely without help: take any worked sentence from Vols I–III, strip it to labelled English, wait a day, and forge it back. Harder settings, when wanted — drop the verb hints; add a tense label to the verb so Vol. VIII joins the fire; or reverse the whole exercise and label a Latin sentence for translation out, naming every case before touching the English. When the labels start feeling like unnecessary scaffolding — when (f sg dat) just sounds like -ae before you think — the forge has done its work, and this document retires with honour.