Latin nouns have case-endings that make them like little phrases rather than like simple individual words. After you have studied the full chart of the declension, practice perceiving the ending-ambiguities immediately, and instead of thinking of the case-names (e.g. dative, ablative, etc.), give the full meanings as conventionalized here. This chart shows you which endings are unambiguous (have only one case as a possibility), and which are doubly- or triply-ambiguous.

Note: These ways of indicating the meanings of the words are only conventions: determining meaning in a sentence is more complex than substituting simple formulae like these. The purpose of this exercise is to get you into the habit of noticing and distinguishing and registering different inflected forms automatically and effortlessly. To achieve the necessary speed and ease of understanding, you should practice these exercises until you recognize the full meanings without having to pause and recall the declension-table. Be aware that in the ablative case, if the noun refers to a person rather than a thing, then the noun is made the object of the preposition a or ab: a puellâ does not mean "by means of the girl" but [something was done] "by the girl."

Give the full meaning of each word-form or phrase in the practice-exercises below, following the conventions given above. N.B.: English-to-Latin exercises are found below the Latin-to-English ones.

Back to full declension chart.