Latin from scratch #11.23: The active subjunctive imperfect tense

In the twenty-third class of the Latin from Scratch course, we’ll study the imperfect past subjuntive in the active voice. It is probably the most frequent subjunctive tense, since it appears quite often in constructions with cum and ut.

I explain everything in the following video (⏳ 06m 27s ⌛):

Morphology of the Latin imperfect subjunctive

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It is made up of the following parts:

1. present stem
2. linking ĕ (3rd and mixed conjugations)
3. imperfect subjunctive morpheme rē
4. active endings

A simpler way to put it would be:

1. active present infinitive
2. active endings

The result is the following table:

1st conjugation	2nd conjugation	3rd conjugation	mixed conjugation	4th conjugation
amarem amares amaret amaremus amaretis amarent	monerem moneres moneret moneremus moneretis monerent	ducerem duceres duceret duceremus duceretis ducerent	caperem caperes caperet caperemus caperetis caperent	audirem audires audiret audiremus audiretis audirent

Imperfect subjunctive of the verb sum

According to the little trick we’ve just given, the imperfect subjunctive of the verb sum works exactly the same: on top of the infinitive esse we add directly the active endings.

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essem
esses
esset
essemus
essetis
essent

That’s it! Quite easy, this tense. Now let’s continue with the next one.

Next: The active subjunctive imperfect tense →