More explanation from Dexter Hoyos about how to read Latin more easily:
1: The Romans didn’t know English (this rule is abbrev’d TRDKE). This is a fundamental rule. THEREFORE word-order and word-group-order in Latin do not follow English patterns, except *by accident*.
2:
a. Phrases, subordinate clauses, and main clauses are all word-groups.
b. The arrangement of word-groups in a sentence is crucial to the meaning.
c. The order of words within a word-group obeys logical patterns. The order of word-groups in a sentence also obeys logical patterns.
d. You can train your eye to recognise all these patterns, which are fundamental to the meaning of the sentence. This is how Romans read
Latin.
e. Read and re-read each sentence so as to understand its structure and its constructions, before you start to translate it.
3:
a. Don’t try to find an English meaning for each separate Latin word, to see if accumulating the separate words in English gives the meaning of the sentence. This method thinks of a Latin sentence as actually Hidden English, and yet TRDKE.
b. Don’t believe that a Latin sentence is simply equivalent to
English words in a mixed-up order. TRDKE.
4:
a. Each word in a sentence tells you about the grammar and sense of the words around it. Therefore each word is a signpost to other words.
b. The endings of the words are as important as the beginnings. The endings tell you the grammar of the sentence. The beginnings tell you the sentence’s message.
5: How to recognise a subordinate clause:–
- It has to start with a conjunction like cum, ut, postquam or the like, or with a relative word like qui.
- It must contain at least 1 finite verb, i.e. a verb with a subject. (Sometimes the subject is implied, not given as a separate word—e.g. libros lego.)
- It cannot form a sentence by itself, but is subordinate to a main clause.
6: How to recognise a phrase:
- A word-group without a Finite Verb is a phrase. A phrase
[i] may be governed by a preposition, e.g. ex urbe, propter gaudium, in Britanniam, ad urbem videndam, multa cum laude
[ii] may consist of words describing a person, thing or event mentioned nearby, e.g. librum legentes, capillis longissimis, multis annis, urbem ingressus, (puella) maximae pulchritudinis
[iii] may be an Ablative Absolute phrase, a gerundival phrase of purpose, an infinitive phrase, or the like. E.g. Cicerone consule, senatu vocato, ad urbem pulcherrimam aedificandam, pacis petendae causa, parentes amare, librum optimum scribendo.
7:
a. A word-group of any kind (main clause, subordinate clause, or phrase), once it has begun, has to be grammatically finished, before the writer can continue with the rest of the sentence. [This statement is an example]
For the same reason, a sentence must be grammatically completed before the next one can start. [As also in English.]
b. The only exception to these rules is that one word-group can 'embrace’ another one. But then 7a applies: the embraced word-group must be grammatically completed before the writer can go back to the ‘embracing’
word-group.
E.g. Cicero, qui olim consul erat, nunc in senatum raro venit.
- This main clause embraces the subordinate clause, which itself must be completed before the main clause can continue.
NOTE 7a & 7b are unbreakable rules in Latin (and in English, if you think about it).
c. A phrase can ‘embrace’ a subordinate clause, and a subordinate clause can ‘embrace’ a phrase. E.g. urbe quae magna erat condita, and ut Romam multis post annis iterum videret.
NOTE If one main clause embraces a second, the latter has to be in brackets or between long dashes.
8:
a. In narrative Latin sentences, all the events are reported in the proper event order, even if the various events are stated in various types of word-groups.
b. In descriptive Latin sentences, the various word-groups are written in the order that seems most logical to the author.