linguam latinam doceo. (original) (raw)

Declensions
Greetings folks. I decided to teach myself Latin and I am so glad I have started to do this. It's wonderful.

The book I am using is Latin Made Simple by Rhoda Hendricks and revised by Lisa Padol. Published in 1992.

The format is terrific. Occasionally, I notice there are errors in the book. I write too, so I do know that it can be difficult to complete a work without any errors at all. However all errors are not equal. If I write a political book, a typo is not as dangerous as a typo in a language book. Most of the time, I am able to catch the mistakes.

When in doubt, I find it useful to compare one book to another book. Hendricks and Padol's book is particularly confusing when I compare its neuter id declension to the one in Beginner's Latin by G.D.A. Sharpley.

In Hendricks and Padol (page 101):, id is declined as follows:

N id ea
G eius eorum
D ei eis or iis
A eum eos
A eo eis or iis

In Sharpley (page 184), it is declined as follows (note I moved around the order cases in order to be consistent with the above one):

N id ea
G eius eorum
D ei eis
A id ea
A eo eis

The discrepancy is the accusative case: In the first book it is "eum, eos", and the second book it "is id, ea"
Page 114 of Hendricks and Padol is particularly confusing because when it discusses the use of these pronouns with "dem", it first refers to it as idem, eadem, idem", then it refers to it as "isdem, eadem, idem". Then it refers to them as "idem, eadem, idem" So what is the deal? What is the correct declension for these pronouns.

It's frustrating to put effort into learning something to only find out you learned it wrong through no fault of your own! So hopefully someone can put this matter to rest for me.