[Arlene]

Hi! Haven’t posted anything before but I have two questions about VL 1 lesson 24 (Possessive pronouns).

On the vocabulary practice sometimes the pronoun is before the noun and sometimes it’s after it (Mea casa, familia mea); I keep getting answers wrong because I put the right words in the wrong order. I feel like I’ve missed something. It seems most of the time the noun is first and then the pronoun, but sometimes it’s the other way around; in what situation(s) do you put the pronoun first?

Also I was just wondering why “your town” was translated as “Oppidi tui” and “your son” as “filii tui;” the ending -i in that could only be genitive singular, but other things phrased the same way in english (your family, your father, your camel) when translated were nominative (familia tua, pater tuus, camelus tuus). And wouldn’t genitive be “of your son” and “of your town?” or would that be “the son of yours” which turns into “your son” and therefore you cannot differentiate between the english translation of genitive and nominative? I hope that made sense; I’m confusing myself just trying to ask it.

Thanks!

[Shiloh]

Hi Arlene! I can’t answer all your questions but I’m about to finish VL 2 and I’ve been through the same thing with genitive and also pronouns before nouns. So I don’t think there’s a rule for where to put it, I know in spanish its almost always written as ‘la casa amarillo’ which directly translated means ‘the house yellow’ but you translate it as ‘the yellow house’. However everyone writes their latin sentences differently; Henle might do it a different way to Mr. Thomas. So just keep translating it as you would in English: ‘casa mea’ is still ‘my house’ ;). Also I’m not sure about the genitive ENDINGS, but genitive technically does have the clue word ‘of’, however in English we tend to turn that into an apostrophe with an s or else we sound like we’re from the 7th century lol. Example: the car of Rebeccah (sounds ancient right?) vs. rebeccah’s car (sounds normal). Hope that helped and someone will definitely be able to answer your other questions too 😁

[Andrea Wang]

Hi Arlene!

Shiloh’s right—Latin does not have any rules for word order. Mea casa and casa mea both correctly mean my house.

About your second question, you are correct that oppidi tui should be translated of your town, since it is neuter genitive singular. Filii tui, however, is masculine, so it has two correct translations: it can either be of your son (genitive singular) or your sons (nominative plural).

Let us know if you have any other questions. Hope this helps!

• This reply was modified 2 months ago by  Andrea Wang.

[Arlene]

Thank you both; that was helpful!