Beginner's Latin
Latinum hodie disce!

Lesson 3: Adjectives

Adverbs and nouns work hand in hand when constructing sentences. Similarly to nouns, adjectives have the same six cases. Additionally, adjectives have declensions just like nouns. They are able to decline for masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns. The way in which they decline is based on what number of declension, just as with nouns. There are five declension types, but we will look at just the first two.

Declension

Adjectives follow a similar pattern to nouns, but with a different way to determine the ending.

1. Find the root of the adjective.
2. Determine the correct ending based on the gender of the noun it modifies.
3. Add the ending to the root.

For the 1st and 2nd declension of adjectives, they have the same form for each case as the nouns they correspond with (given the correct gender). Take the adjective magnus, magna, magnum: great, large, important. The first word of the three words in the vocab entry is the masculine nominative form. The second is the feminine nominative, and the third is the neuter nominative.

The following is a table showing the full declension of the adjective: magnus, magna, magnum.



This concludes the adjective lesson, check out the vocabulary by clicking below!