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Anthony Hodson


Anthony Hodson teaches Latin

The main aim of this work is to help young people to gain a secure knowledge of how Latin works, primarily by the use of prose translation texts used for GCSE, but also by translating challenging modern texts such as 'Harrius Potter' and 'Winnie ille Pu'.

To aid in this work, Anthony has been compiling 'Briefings' which distil elements of grammar with techniques useful in prose translation at GCSE levels.

The following texts are in development, and are accessible from this web-page:

Progressive vocabularies for the early Latin Stories are also available:


Briefing 0 - 'How to translate'

This briefing starts by encouraging a reader in Latin first of all to scan each sentence for the verb or verbs, and have an idea of how the sentence is constructed. It will normally have a main clause and may have one or more subordinate clauses introduced by a conjunction or relative pronoun. These clauses can then be studied, looking particularly for subject and object.

This framework can then be filled in by working out what each other word in the sentence does, perhaps agreeing with other words in case, number and gender,

The briefinl gives has three Appendices: (1) a list of common prepositions; (2) a list of common conjunction and other particles and (3) a list of all the one- and two-letter words in Latin, as a reminder not to ignore short words!


Briefing 1 - 'Declension of Nouns and Adjectives'

This briefing is a fairly complete tabulation of the case endings of nouns and adjectives, and also gives details of the special features of adjectives, and the way that they can be converted into adverbs.


Briefing 2 - 'Latin Pronouns and their declension'

This briefing is a summary of the behaviour of common pronouns.


Briefing 3 - 'Conjugation of verbs'

This briefing is a fairly complete tabulation of the tenses and person endings of verbs, and other verb forms such as infinitives, imperatives and participles

It gives details of passive endings, and also of the subjunctive mood endings.


Briefing 4 - 'Compound sentences'

Compound sentences are sentences that contain clauses (with verbs) that are usually introduced in English by conjunctions such as 'if', 'when', 'because', 'so that', 'that' or relative pronouns such as 'who', 'which', 'that' etc. These are very common in both English and Latin. Latin has some compact forms, such as Ablative Absolutes, Accusative and Infinitive, that are particularly important to know about.


Briefing 5 - 'Gender'

Latin nouns fall into three genders, masculine, feminine and neuter, which are not fully aligned with biological gender (sex). The five declensions in Latin represent gender rules, except for the 3rd declension, which can represent all three genders. Nouns, adjectives and pronouns have gender-specific endings; verbs do not except when they use participles to conjugate (e.g. past passive tenses). Particles do not change at all with gender - or number.




Anthony and Margaret-Anne Hodson
Spring Lanes House,
Holly Spring Lane,
Bracknell, Berkshire RG12 2JL
Tel: 01344 483347
EMAIL LINK to Anthony
EMAIL LINK to Margaret-Anne

Spring Lanes House

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