In this little story, two slaves are returning home when they are confronted by a dog wandering loose in the streets. As with many wild street mongrols, this pooch doesn

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In this little story, two slaves are returning
home when they are confronted by a dog wandering
loose in the streets. As with many wild street
mongrols, this pooch doesnt much like people,
and so our two slaves find themselves in quite a
pickle!
You will also see the use of two different forms
of past tense verbs. When the storys action
is about to change course, when something
suddenly interrupts what the characters were
doing, or to show that something that used to
happen in the past stopped happening, we use
what is called the IMPERFECT tense form of the
verb. When the story needs to explain just a one
time event, just a basic old past tense (-ed
on the end of the word for example), we use what
is called the PERFECT tense verb form.
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Imperfect tense
Perfect tense
The slaves were walking through the street.
Suddenly a dog barked.
Here we see the slaves doing something (walking)
that will soon be interupted by another event.
To show the reader or listener that this change
of action will soon occur, English uses the
helping verb were and adds an -ing to the end
of the verb walk.
Now we have the action (dog barking) that
interrupted the other action (slaves walking).
To show that this action is just a one time
event and that it is not going to be interrupted
(like the slaves walking was), English just
uses the regular past tense form of the verb
(barked) with no helping verb.
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Imperfect tense
Perfect tense
In Latin, instead of using a helping verb (such
as was or were in English) the IMPERFECT
tense uses a different ending. Imperfect tense
verbs use the ba- syllable, placed right
before the plural ending -nt to show the
imperfect tense is being used.
In Latin, the we see that the PERFECT tense form
of the verb does NOT have that ba- syllable
right before the singular ending -t. Remember
the perfect tense usually has a slightly
different spelling than the present tense form,
just as it does in English!
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Grumio was afraid of the dog.
Pest! shouted the cook.
Here the slave is showing fear, but at some point
in the story something will stop Grumio from
being afraid. The use of the Imperfect tense
(was afraid or timebat) for the verb shows
that this feeling of fear will at some point stop
because of some other action.
Grumio, in panic and fear, yells at the
bothersome mutt. His action (shouted) just
happened once. The shout was not interrupted
by another action and it did not repeat itself
over a period of time, thus the use of the
Perfect tense (shouted or clamavit) verb
form .
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Clemens was brave.
But the dog overpowered Clemens
Clemens WAS brave, but that bravery came to an
end when the dog overpowered him. The use of
the two different types of past tenses (Imperfect
and Perfect) lets us convey much more meaning
and detail when describing event that happened in
the past. We can get across which actions
were continually done in the past, or happened in
the past but were interrupted by something else
(Imperfect tense) We can show which actions
caused those interruptions or which were just
simple, one time only actions in the past
(Perfect tense)
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LATIN VERB ENDINGS TO SHOW SUBJECT TENSE Present Tense Endings Imperfect Tense Endings Perfect Tense Endings
Singular (He, She, It) -t laborat He works. ancilla laborat The maid works. -bat laborabat He was working. ancilla laborabat The maid was working. -it laboravit He worked. ancilla laboravit The maid worked.

Plural (They) -nt laborant They work. servi laborant The slaves work. -bant laborabant They were working. servi laborabant The slaves were working. -erunt laboraverunt They worked. servi laboraverunt The slaves worked
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Which verb from these two sentences is in the
imperfect tense? Which verb from these two
sentences is in the imperfect tense?
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Try to translate this part of the story into good
English. Make sure you think about the tense
of the verbs in each sentence and how you should
translate those tenses into English.
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Try to translate this part of the story into good
English. Make sure you think about the tense
of the verbs in each sentence and how you should
translate those tenses into English.