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Latin from scratch course › #11: Subjunctive › #11.22: Present

Latin from scratch #11.22: The active subjunctive present tense

In the twenty-second class of the Latin from Scratch course, we’ll study the first tense in the subjunctive mood: the present subjunctive in the active voice.

I explain everything in the following video (⏳ 07m 58s ⌛):

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Morphology of the Latin present subjunctive

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It is quite similar to the morphology you might know from Romance languages:

  1. present stem
  2. present subjunctive morpheme ē/ā (see below)
  3. active endings

The morpheme will be:

  • ē in the 1st conjugation
  • ā in the rest of conjugations

The result is the following table:

1st conjugation2nd conjugation3rd conjugationmixed conjugation4th conjugation
amem
ames
amet
amemus
ametis
ament
moneam
moneas
moneat
moneamus
moneatis
moneant
ducam
ducas
ducat
ducamus
ducatis
ducant
capiam
capias
capiat
capiamus
capiatis
capiant
audiam
audias
audiat
audiamus
audiatis
audiant

Please notice that the 1st person singular in the 3rd, mixed and 4th conjugations are identical to the corresponding future indicative.

Present subjunctive of the verb sum

In the present subjunctive the verb sum has an irregular stem si‑, but on top of it we just add the active endings (no morphemes) in a completely regular way:

sim
sis
sit
simus
sitis
sint

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Translation of the present subjunctive into English

Since English has almost no subjunctive mood at all, it would be quite hard to understand and learn the difference between the present indicative and the present subjunctive.

Therefore I don’t recommend obsessing over how to use the subjunctive. Our only mission (at least until you’re quite good at Latin) is to translate Latin into English, so we really don’t need to know when Latin uses subjunctive instead of indicative.

In any case, quite soon we will see that most of the times tenses in the subjunctive mood appear in quite specific constructions and structures that we’ll learn and master.

For now, let’s go to the next tense!

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Next: The active subjunctive present tense →

Paco Álvarez

About Paco Álvarez

I’m Paco Álvarez, a Spanish classical philologist. For years I’ve been teaching Latin and Greek online to Spanish students. When I saw there was nothing like my AcademiaLatin.com for English-speaking Latin lovers, I decided to create it myself, and that’s how LatinFromScratch.com was born.

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Course content

  1. Quick start
  2. Introduction
  3. Cases and their functions
  4. The five declensions
  5. First declension
  6. Verbal conjugation
  7. Present tense
  8. Second declension
  9. 2-1-2 adjectives
  10. Imperfect past tense
  11. Future tense
  12. Third declension nouns
  13. Third declension adjectives
  14. Perfect past tense
  15. Adverbials of place
  16. Fourth declension
  17. Fifth declension
  18. Pluperfect tense
  19. Possessives
  20. Personal pronouns
  21. Apposition
  22. Predicative complement
  23. Present subjunctive
  24. Imperfect subjunctive
  25. Perfect subjunctive
  26. Perfect future indicative
  27. Pluperfect subjunctive
  28. Syntax of cum
  29. Syntax of ut & ne
  30. Comparison of adjectives
  31. Superlative adjectives
  32. Adverbs from adjectives
  33. Demonstratives
  34. Relative clauses
  35. Passive voice
  36. Deponent verbs
  37. Relative time
  38. Participles: morphology
  39. Participles: syntax
  40. Infinitives
  41. Compounds of sum
  42. Irregular verbs
  43. Imperative

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