Before you begin to learn Latin, there are some things about English grammar you need to know. Latin is a language entirely governed by grammatical rules, so without a firm grasp of grammar in English, learning Latin will be a far more daunting task than it needs to be.

First of all, we have the parts of speech. These are the different functions performed by the words we use in English everyday. Because English sentences do not rely on a formal grammatical structure to be understood, we may not always be aware of these functions. Here is a list:

• Noun: the name of a place, person or thing. A noun can be a proper noun, or a name of this or that particular person, place or thing; it can also be a common noun, naming a type. Nouns can also be concrete or abstract. A concrete nouns names something material, such as “road” or “building”. Abstract nouns refer to immaterial things such as “happiness” or “joy”.
• Adjective: An adjective is a word that modifies a noun specifically. You may have learned in school that an adjective is a “describing word”; however, this is only half true. An adverb is also a describing word but it does not apply to nouns.
• Adverb: An adverb modifies a verb. In English, an adverb is typically formed by adding “-ly” to an adjective, i.e., “quick-ly”, “happi-ly”; there are some exceptions, such as “well”, which is the adverbial form of “good”.
• Verb: A verb denotes some action or other. In school, you may have heard this described as a “doing word”, which works as a rule of thumb. Verbs have different forms and tenses. Here are the principal ones:
  • Infinitive: In English, the infinitive form of the verb is created by prefixing the word ‘to’ to the word. For instance, “to run”, “to catch”, “to fly” are all infinitive verbs.
  • Present tense: