Latin Present Tense Verb Endings Chant

What is the Latin tense?

This lesson is in the "present tense". This describes what is happening presently (as in now). There are three ways of translating the present tense into English.

This example is the verb "to carry".

1. I am carrying

2. I carry

3. I do carry

To decide which one to use, simply pick the one that makes the most sense in the sentence. Usually, the first version makes the most sense.

The first few Latin tenses that you learn tend to have the following endings:

Latin Present Tense Verb Endings

LATIN VERBS: THE BASICS

Latin verbs have different rules governing the way they conjugate. For the most part, Latin verbs conjugate by attaching endings to the stems themselves, without all the separate helping words put in front of the stem as in English to tell you how to understand the action.

You must learn two things for Latin verbs: (1) the stems, and (2) how the stems are modified at the ends to show different conditions under which the action is occurring.

Here is the conjugation of the verb "to see" in the present tense in English.

SINGULAR PLURAL

I see we see
you see you see
he, she, it, sees they see

Here is the Latin translation for the verb English verb "to see" with these modifications.

 LATIN ENGLISH

1st video I see
2nd vides you see
3rd videt he/she/it sees

1st videmus we see
2nd videtis you see
3rd vident they see

Latin conjugates its verbs by attaching endings to the root of the verb itself. The common feature of the verb "to see" in Latin is the stem "vide-" and to show changes in person and number, Latin adds a suffix. These suffixes are called the "endings" because they indicate the person and the number of the conjugated form of the verb.