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Latin Reference — Vol. 0: The Cases Hiding in English

A prelude, to be read before the endings. The claim of this volume: you can already do case analysis, because English quietly requires it of you. Before memorising a single Latin ending, practise looking at an English sentence and naming the case each noun would take in Latin. Once that's fluent, the endings in Vol. I are simply the spelling of decisions you've already made.

The pronoun fossils

Old English declined its nouns much as Latin does. Modern English abandoned the endings — except in pronouns, where the old machinery still runs:

Role 1st sing. 1st pl. 3rd m. 3rd f. 3rd pl. Question word
Subject I we he she they who?
Object me us him her them whom?
Possessor my our his her their whose?

"Him sees I" is instantly, viscerally wrong to you — and word order alone can't explain why, since reordering "the dog sees the cat" gives a different sentence rather than a broken one. What offends the ear is case: him is an object form doing a subject's job. You've been enforcing case agreement your whole life; Latin extends the same discipline to every noun.

The possessive 's is a second survivor — a genuine case ending, directly descended from the Old English genitive -es. "The king's sword" and gladius rēgis run on identical machinery: an ending on the possessor.

Aside — Old English, for later. Old English declined everything, articles included: se cyning (the king, nominative), þæs cyninges (of the king), þǣm cyninge (to the king), þone cyning (the king, object). By Chaucer most of it had worn away; by Shakespeare only the pronouns and 's were left. If you one day turn to Old English, the case instincts built here transfer almost wholesale — same questions, different spellings.

Six questions

The working tool of the whole volume. Each case answers a question you can ask of any sentence:

Ask of the sentence… Case English disguise
Who or what does it? Nominative position before the verb
Whose is it? Genitive 's, or "of the …"
To or for whom? (the recipient or beneficiary) Dative "to/for the …" — or nothing at all (see Disguises)
Who or what is acted on? Also: where to? Accusative position after the verb; "to(wards)" with motion
By what means? With whom? Where? When? From where? Ablative "by / with / from / in / at / on the …"
Is someone addressed directly? Vocative set off by commas; sometimes "O …!"

Aside — don't trust the word "object". English grammar lumps two Latin cases under one label. The direct object (what the verb acts on) is accusative. The indirect object (who receives or benefits) is dative. "She gives the dog a bone": both dog and bone feel like objects, but the bone is what gets given (accusative) and the dog is who gets it (dative). Keeping those two apart is the most valuable habit this volume can build.

Dissections

English sentences with every noun tagged for the case Latin would give it. Read the tags until they feel inevitable. Grouped by what each set adds.

Doer and done-to

Possession joins in

Recipients

The ablative's portfolio — means, company, place, source

Motion pairs — source and goal in one sentence

Address, and the kitchen sink

The disguises

English hides Latin's distinctions in four specific places. Know where the costumes hang and the rest is straightforward.

1. The vanishing dative. English marks the recipient with "to" — or drops it and relies on word order. "I sent a letter to my mother" and "I sent my mother a letter" are the same sentence; mother is dative in both. The test: if the sentence can be rewritten with "to/for" before a noun without changing meaning, that noun is dative.

2. The two-faced "to". English "to" covers both giving and going; Latin splits them. "I give the book to the girl" — recipient, dative, and no preposition at all in Latin (puellae librum dō). "I walk to the temple" — destination, accusative with ad (ad templum ambulō). Ask: is something physically travelling towards the noun, or is the noun receiving? Going → accusative. Getting → dative. Where both seem true ("I sent a letter to my mother"), Latin reads the person as recipient: mātrī epistulam mīsī, dative.

3. The two-faced "in". English says "in" for both location and entry. "The coins are in the box" — location, ablative. "He dropped the coins in the box" — they crossed a boundary on the way: motion, accusative (Latin would say in arcam, into). Ask whether anything passes from outside to inside. If it does, English "in" is wearing "into"'s coat.

4. The two "with"s. "With" covers company and tools alike; both answer ablative questions, so for case-spotting purposes both are ablative — but Latin refines it. Company takes cum: cum amīcō, with a friend. Instruments travel bare, no preposition: gladiō, with a sword; malleō, with a hammer. Latin reserves companionship for the animate; the hammer goes unaccompanied.

Self-test

Name the case of each bold noun, then open to check. Four rounds, rising difficulty. No Latin needed until the final round tells you otherwise.

Round one — warm-ups

The kettle boils.

kettle — nominative. Sole noun, doing the deed.

Rain flattened the barley.

rain — nominative · barley — accusative. Doer and done-to.

The blacksmith's hammer rings.

blacksmith's — genitive · hammer — nominative. The possessor never does the verb merely by owning the thing that does.

"Good morning, doctor."

doctor — vocative. Spoken to, not about.

We fed the chickens.

chickens — accusative. Directly acted on. (Hold this one in mind; it returns in round four with a twist.)

The key is in the drawer.

key — nominative · drawer — ablative of place. Nothing moves; the "in" is honest.

Round two — full sentences

The weasel chases the fat mouse.

weasel — nominative · mouse — accusative. (In Latin the adjective fat would agree with the mouse in case, number and gender — Vol. III's business.)

The sailor's wife waits by the harbour.

sailor's — genitive · wife — nominative · harbour — ablative of place.

We told the children a story.

we — nominative · children — dative (rewrite test: "told a story to the children") · story — accusative.

"Meg, drop the stick!"

Meg — vocative, for all the good it will do · stick — accusative.

The miller grinds the village's corn with a waterwheel.

miller — nominative · village's — genitive · corn — accusative · waterwheel — ablative of means (a tool: no cum).

They rode from the fort to the river with their hounds.

they — nominative · fort — ablative (source) · river — accusative (goal of motion) · hounds — ablative of accompaniment (company: cum).

The priestess gives the goddess an offering.

priestess — nominative · goddess — dative (the recipient) · offering — accusative (the thing given).

His letter reached me yesterday.

his — genitive · letter — nominative · me — accusative. All three answers were already sitting in the pronoun table.

Round three — the disguises

He walks to the market.

market — accusative. Motion toward: ad + accusative. Boots on the road.

He sells eggs to the market traders.

market traders — dative. Nobody travels; the traders receive. Same English "to", different case.

She put the milk in the pantry.

pantry — accusative. The milk crossed the threshold: "in" wearing "into"'s coat. Latin: in + accusative.

The milk is in the pantry.

pantry — ablative. Location, no movement. The same three English words — "in the pantry" — split by whether anything arrives.

He carved the bowl with a knife.

knife — ablative of means. A tool: bare ablative, no cum.

He carved the bowl with his grandfather.

grandfather — ablative of accompaniment, with cum. Company, not equipment — a crowded workbench, but a happy one.

We sent the wounded help.

wounded — dative (they receive) · help — accusative (the thing sent). The vanishing dative at its most compressed.

The ferryman took the pilgrims across the river.

pilgrims — accusative (directly acted on) · river — also accusative, but for a different reason: trans + accusative, motion across. Two accusatives, two justifications.

Round four — fiendish

"Friend, the god of the spring gave my father his health back."

friend — vocative · god — nominative · spring — genitive · my — genitive · father — dative · health — accusative. Six nouns, five different cases, one perfectly ordinary sentence.

On that day the army left the city.

day — ablative of time-when: Latin says eō diē with no preposition at all · army — nominative · city — an honest ambiguity. English "left" covers two Latin constructions: ex urbe excessit (departed out of the city — ablative of source) and urbem relīquit (abandoned the city — accusative, directly acted on). Both defensible; the verb you choose governs the case. A first glimpse of a larger truth: verbs are opinionated about their nouns.

The thief stole the traveller's purse at night.

thief — nominative · traveller's — genitive · purse — accusative · night — ablative of time-when: nocte, no preposition.

Sulis, we give you the thief.

Sulis — vocative · you — dative (tibi, the recipient) · thief — accusative (the thing handed over). This is, word for word, the legal logic of the Bath curse tablets: deae Sulī fūrem dōnō — the theft becomes the goddess's problem. Vol. VI awaits.

The guide showed the visitors the hillfort's ramparts.

guide — nominative · visitors — dative · hillfort's — genitive · ramparts — accusative. Somewhere on the South Downs, this sentence happens most weekends.

The senate trusted the general.

A deliberate ambush. Every English instinct says accusative — direct object, acted on. Latin disagrees: crēdere (to trust) hands its object the dative — senātus ducī crēdidit, roughly "the senate gave trust to the general." A handful of common verbs do this (crēdere trust, pārēre obey, nocēre harm), and they're flagged in dictionaries. The moral, not the exception, is the point: the six questions get you to the right case almost always, and where Latin deviates, it deviates by rule, not whim.

The bridge

Tagged English carried across into Latin. The analysis is the translation; the endings record your answers.

The girl (nom) gives flowers (acc) to her mother (dat) in the garden (abl).

Puella mātrī flōrēs in hortō dat.

puella nominative · mātrī dative · flōrēs accusative · in hortō ablative of place · dat — she gives. No word for "to", no word for "her", no articles: four case decisions did all of it.

The soldier (nom) walks from the temple (abl) to the river (acc).

Mīles ā templō ad flūmen ambulat.

Source in the ablative with ā; goal in the accusative with ad. The two-faced "to", unmasked.

The weasel (nom) gives the mouse (dat) nothing (acc).

Mustela mūrī nihil dat.

Even a refusal declines properly. (The chase, meanwhile, continues — captat, still trying.)

The drill

One round of the self-test per train journey; no peeking before opening. Round three is the one to re-run until the four disguises stop catching you — that's the skill the whole volume exists to build. When Duolingo next serves an opaque sentence, run the six questions over the English first; the Latin endings then arrive as answers to questions you've already asked, rather than spellings to memorise.