Latin Person and Number: A Guide to Latin Personal Endings
Person and number are two important properties of Latin verbs. They give you crucial information, answering the question: who performs the action in a sentence?
Am I running? Or are you? Or maybe it is the next-door neighbors!
Each of these possibilities involves a specific person and number: first person singular (I), second person singular (you), and third person plural (they, that is, the next-door neighbors).
If you want to be successful in Latin, you must have a thorough understanding of person and number. So I will start by listing each possible combination of person and number.
Then we will take a look at Latin verb personal endings. These personal endings are crucial for identifying person and number and consequently for understanding Latin texts.
As always, I have included lots of examples – and there are also exercises so you can test your new knowledge!
This post may contain affiliate links and I may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. See my disclosures for more details.
What are person and number in Latin?
Latin verbs have five properties: person, number, tense, voice and mood. This post focuses on person and number, since these two properties work together to express who performs an action.
We will look at person, then number, and finally how the two are combined.
Latin Person
A verb’s person is a way of describing its subject (the person or thing performing the action). Latin – just like English – has three persons: first, second, and third.
If the subject of the verb is the speaker, then the verb is in the first person. In English, our first person pronouns are “I” and “we”. Here are some examples of verbs in the first person (i.e. verbs with first person subjects):
- I sit.
- We were talking.
- We had been dismissed.
- I will not go.
If the subject of the verb is the person spoken to, then the verb is in the second person. The English second person pronouns are “you” and “y’all” (“you” in the plural). Here are some examples of second person verbs:
- You should stay.
- You all are laughing.
If the subject of the verb is the person or thing spoken about, then the verb is in the third person. Some English third person pronouns are “he”, “she”, “it”, and “they”. Examples:
- She did not eat.
- He will come.
- They were having a party.
Verbs are also third person if they have nouns as their subjects. Here are some examples:
- The cat was walking.
- The trees were cut down.
- Education is important.
Now that you know what the three Latin persons are, let’s move on to number.
Latin Number
Latin has two numbers: singular and plural. Number is extremely straightforward. Just as with person, a verb’s number is related to its subject.
If the subject of the verb is one person or thing, then the verb is singular. Examples:
- The house is red.
- I am going.
- She saw me.
- The woman sings a song.
If the subject of the verb is two or more people or things, then the verb is plural. Examples:
- The houses are red.
- We are going.
- They saw me.
- The women sing a song.
Now let’s look at person and number together.
Person and Number Together
Every finite (conjugated) verb has both person and number. When we combine person and number, we end up with six possibilities.
- 1st person singular – I
- 2nd person singular – you
- 3rd person singular – he, she, it
- 1st person plural – we
- 2nd person plural – you (all)
- 3rd person plural – they
The following chart presents the personal pronouns that correlate to the three persons, singular and plural, in Latin:
| Singular | Plural | |
| First Person | ego | nōs |
| Second Person | tū | vōs |
| Third Person | is, ea, id | eī, eae, ea |
Let’s look at some example sentences in Latin.
I have put the subject in bold, and you will notice that the final few letters of each Latin verb are also in bold. See if you can detect a pattern, and I will explain everything below.
- Ego fēlem videō. = I see the cat. (1st person singular)
- Ea fēlem audīvit. = She heard the cat. (3rd person singular)
- Vōs in silvam currētis. = You (all) will run into the forest. (2nd person plural)
- Ursī aquam bibunt. = The bears drink water. (3rd person plural)
Sentences #1-3 include personal pronouns. The first sentence has ego (I), while the second has ea (she), and the third has vōs (you all).
But typically in Latin you will not see subject pronouns unless they are emphatic. This is because Latin verbs have personal endings.
Latin Personal Endings
Every finite (that is, conjugated) Latin verb has a personal ending. Personal endings tell us what person and number a verb is.
Basically, a personal ending is a letter or group of letters found at the very end of a verb. In Sentence #1 above, the personal ending of videō is –ō.
Latin has two sets of personal endings: active personal endings and passive personal endings. Note that some textbooks will call these personal endings final personal signs.
If you are a beginning student, you probably have not learned passive voice yet, so this section focuses on the active personal endings. But we will return to the passive voice below.
ACTIVE PERSONAL ENDINGS
| Singular | Plural | |
| 1st | ō / m | mus |
| 2nd | s | tis |
| 3rd | t | nt |
PASSIVE PERSONAL ENDINGS
| Singular | Plural | |
| 1st | or / r | mur |
| 2nd | ris | minī |
| 3rd | tur | ntur |
The personal endings are the same regardless of verb tense or mood. Even irregular verbs like the verb to be and the verb to be able have regular personal endings.
Consider the following 3rd person plural verbs. They all have the ending –nt, even though they vary in tense and mood.
- cēpērunt = they seized (perfect indicative)
- capiant = let them seize (present subjunctive)
- capiēbant = they were seizing (imperfect indicative)
Awesome, right? Less endings to memorize!
Now let’s return to our (slightly modified) sample sentences.
- Fēlem videō. = I see the cat. (-ō indicates 1st person singular)
- Fēlem audīvit. = She heard the cat. (-t indicates 3rd person singular)
- In silvam currētis. = You (all) will run into the forest. (-tis indicates 2nd person plural)
- Ursī aquam bibunt. = The bears drink water. (-nt indicates 3rd person plural)
In Sentence #1, there is no independent subject, but the verb videō ends in –ō. The chart shows us that –ō is the active personal ending of the 1st person singular. This is how we know that I (ego) am the one who sees the cat.
If you were the one seeing the cat, then we would say fēlem vidēs. The final –s would specify that “you” (tū) is the subject.
Similarly, in #2, the –t on audīvit tells us that we have a 3rd person singular subject. The –tis on currētis in #3 explains that “you (all)” (vōs) are the ones about to run.
In #4, the –nt on bibunt reveals that we are dealing with a third person plural subject (“they”). In this instance, “they” are the bears, so ursī is included to make the subject more specific.
As a Latin student, you must pay extra attention to the ending of each verb. Verb endings are more important than they are in English. After all, when pronouns are omitted, the verb alone can indicate who is performing a given action.
In English, we always have to have an explicit noun or pronoun that acts as the subject of a verb. This is because our verbs themselves do not change much based on their subject.
If I say “were singing” in English, that is not a complete statement. You might ask: Who was singing?
I might be saying “you” were singing, or that “we” were singing, or that “they” were singing. There’s no way to tell from the verb alone. That’s why an explicit subject is necessary.
Latin, on the other hand, is a highly inflected language, and verb endings contain a lot of information about the subject. For this reason, pronouns can be omitted without confusion.
Compare cantābāmus “we were singing” and cantābant “they were singing”. There is a clear distinction between the two words; the we-form ends in –mus and the they-form ends in -nt. We don’t need to add the pronouns nōs and eī to specify who was singing.
How do you identify a Latin verb’s person and number?
Fortunately for Latin students everywhere, it is actually quite simple to find a verb’s person and number. You just need to look at the very end of the verb and see what personal ending it has.
Is it –ō or –m? First person singular! –tis? Second person plural!
If you memorize the endings in the charts above, then you can look at any Latin verb and instantly determine its person and number.
It doesn’t matter whether you know the meaning of the verb or not, whether the verb is first conjugation or third conjugation, or whether it’s regular or irregular. It doesn’t matter what tense or mood the verb is in.
Only one tense (the perfect indicative) has exceptions, which I will discuss below. And personal endings do not apply to imperatives.
But all in all, memorizing two small sets of endings will save you so much time and revolutionize your understanding of Latin.
Parsing Latin verbs is impossible if you don’t know the personal endings.
Beyond that, and even more importantly, reading Latin well also depends on knowledge of personal endings. After all, if you don’t understand who is doing what, your comprehension of a Latin story will be very shaky!
Now that I have convinced you to pay attention to personal endings, it’s time to put your new knowledge into practice.
Practice Exercises
In the following exercise, I give you a random assortment of Latin verbs. Your job is to look at the ending and determine a) the verb’s person and b) its number.
For the sake of simplicity, all the verbs are in the active voice.
Example: cantās
Answer: 2nd person singular
When you look at the ending of cantās, you see -s. If you reference the chart above, you see that -s is the 2nd person singular ending.
Simple, right? Now you try!
PRO TIP: Don’t confuse -s and -tis. Always check to see if the final S is preceded by T and I.
- didicērunt
- capiam
- iacēbitis
- pepulerat
- ōrāvistis
- veniēbāmus
- adiūvō
- clāmās
- didicērunt – 3rd person plural
- capiam – 1st person singular
- iacēbitis – 2nd person plural
- pepulerat – 3rd person singular
- ōrāvistis – 2nd person plural
- veniēbāmus – 1st person plural
- adiuvō – 1st person singular
- clāmās – 2nd person singular
How are you feeling? A bit more comfortable? Now let’s take it a step further.
In the following exercise, all the verbs are in the present tense. I supply the basic meaning, so your job is to inspect the ending and say who is performing the action. Then translate the verb into English.
Example: cantās (sing)
Answer: you (singular) sing
As we saw up above, the -s personal ending indicates that cantās is 2nd person singular. Therefore, the subject is “you” and the proper translation is “you sing”.
- discis (learn)
- capiunt (seize)
- iaceō (lie down)
- pellit (drive)
- ōrātis (beg)
- venītis (come)
- adiuvāmus (help)
- clāmant (shout)
- discis – you (singular) learn
- capiunt – they seize
- iaceō – I lie down
- pellit – he / she / it drives
- ōrātis – you (plural) beg
- venītis – you (plural) come
- adiuvāmus – we help
- clāmant – they shout
See? You’re translating mini-sentences already!
Exceptions to the Latin Personal Endings
I told you that there were a few exceptions to these reliable personal endings. The exceptions are found within the perfect indicative active.
If you are a beginning student, you may not have reached the perfect tense yet. In that case, feel free to ignore this section.
Here are the full endings of the perfect indicative active. Endings that do not include the normal final personal signs are in bold.
| Singular | Plural | |
| 1st | ī | imus |
| 2nd | istī | istis |
| 3rd | it | ērunt / ēre |
As you can see, the 3rd person singular has the expected personal ending (t), as do the 1st and 2nd person plural (mus and tis, respectively). Things get weird in the 1st and 2nd person singular and in the 3rd person plural.
Instead of –ō or –m, the 1st person singular form ends in –ī. And instead of -s, the 2nd person singular form ends in -istī.
As far as the 3rd person plural goes, there are actually two common forms. The first, ērunt, ends in -nt as we expect. The second, ēre, does not.
And there you go. Now you know the exceptions to the regular personal endings. You are ready to take on the world of Latin!
Notes on the Passive Personal Endings
Up above, I explained that there are two separate sets of personal endings: active and passive. In my explanations and exercises, I focused on the active voice, since this is what you learn first.
Now let’s look at some examples of the passive personal endings!
- In silvā audiēbāminī. = You all were being heard in the forest. (2nd person plural)
- Ā nautā terrēris. = You are terrified by the sailor. (2nd person singular)
- Dōna ad urbem mittantur! = Let the gifts be sent to the city! (3rd person plural)
So far, so good. But there is a quirk of the passive voice that complicates things slightly.
Personal endings allow you to identify person and number. Since there are active and passive endings, you might think that personal endings will also tell you whether a verb is active or passive.
And you would be right – most of the time. If a verb has active endings, it is active. If it has passive endings, it is passive.
But the passive personal endings are only used on verbs in the present system – that is, verbs in the present, future, or imperfect tenses.
In the perfect system (perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect tenses), on the other hand, the passive is formed by combining a form of the verb sum (to be) with the perfect participle passive. For example, laudātus est means “he has been praised / he was praised”.
Laudātus is a participle, so it does not have a personal ending. The personal ending, –t, is on est. Est has an active personal ending, but the verb as a whole is passive.
So if you see a compound verb form like this, be careful. There will be an active final personal sign, and it will tell you the person and number of the verb, but the verb itself is actually passive.
You should also watch out for deponent verbs (aka verbs that are passive in form but active in meaning).
Final Thoughts on Latin Person and Number
Now you know what the ending of a Latin verb can tell you. You have learned how Latin verb personal endings help you identify person, number, and voice.
Memorize those personal endings, and your Latin journey will be SO much easier. You will always know who is performing or receiving an action.
Speaking of making things easier: do you know what verb principal parts are? Principal parts are another helpful tool for Latin learners. So go check out my post on the topic!
I also want to recommend Vice Verba, one of my favorite apps for learning Latin. You can use it to practice identifying person and number.
The app allows you to choose which tenses, moods, and voices to include, so you can adjust the difficulty to your level.
YOU MAY ALSO LOVE:
