Latin to English

You're required to study English grammar and usage in school because it'll improve your own writing and reading skills. (At least, this is the goal.) You may not ever have to point to a word and say, "That's an indirect object in that sentence," but hopefully you'll subconsciously apply what you know about grammar when you read and write.

Depending on the context, "laughing" can be translated by

• the noun risus, -i, m., "laughter" ("Your laughing is getting on my nerves")
• the infinitive ridere, "to laugh" ("Laughing is good for your health")
• the gerund ridendum, -i, "laughing" ("He responded by laughing")
• the present participle ridens, -ntis "laughing" ("He stood before me laughing")

Latin words with "nat" generally involve the idea of "birth" or "begetting" (as in natus, "born"), from the Proto-Indo-European root *gen, in its so-called zero-grade form *gn- with loss of the initial g (the gsurvives in such words as genus "race, kind" and cognatus "born together"). Latin words with nat- from this source include:

Natalis "of birth"

Natio "a begetting" -> "a race of people"

Nativus "arising from birth"

Natura "birth" -> "inborn disposition"

"Nat" may also be from Latin natare "to swim," as in the word "natatorium" for a swimming facility.

"Nat" can also indicate the element sodium, from the Neo-Latin natrium. Used almost exclusively in medical terms such as "hypernatremia" meaning too high a concentration of sodium in the blood or "hyponatremia", too low a concentration of sodium in the blood. Natron is hydrated sodium carbonate, used in ancient Egypt in the mummification process.

Spec means look.

Examples:

specimen, specific, spectator, spectacle, aspect, speculate, inspect, respect, prospect, retrospective, introspective.

Its the second principle part of the verb verb sum. (to be). Most Latin verbs have four principle parts which are used in various forms in various context. The 2nd principle part is called the infinitive and gives you the basic definition of the verb. Its most often the form used in dictionaries.

Its four principle parts are: sum, esse, fui, futurus

In its simplest active indicative form, the verb sum conjugates thus:

Singular:

sum I am

es you are

est he/she/it is

Plural

sumes we are

estis you all are

sunt they are

Everyone knows the expression: cogito ergo sum: I think therefore I am. But you could just as easily say cogito ergo estis I think therefore you all are, and you'd be grammatically correct.

I don't climb the tree, because I don't want to fall into the stream is the English equivalent of 'Ego arborem non ascendo quod in rivum cadere nolo'.

In the word by word translation, the personal pronoun 'ego', in the first person singular, means 'I'. The feminine gender noun 'arborem', in the accusative singular of 'arbor' as the subject of the sentence, means 'tree'. The adverb 'non' means 'not'. The verb 'ascendo', in the first person singular of the present indicative of 'ascendere', means '[I] climb, mount'. The conjunction 'quod' means 'because'. The preposition 'in' means 'into'. The masculine gender noun 'rivum', in the accusative singular of 'rivus' as the direct object of the verb, means 'stream'. The infinitive 'cadere' means 'to fall'. The verb 'nolo', in the first person singular of the present indicative of 'nolle', means '[I] am unwilling'.

One Latin equivalent of the English phrase 'Never back down' is the following: Nunquam redeas. Another equivalent is as follows: Nunquam redeatis. The word-by-word translation is the following: 'nunquam' means 'never'; and 'redeas' and 'redeatis' mean '[you] back down' and '[you all] back down', respectively.

If you want to tell someone to never back down, that would be an inperative form.

Noli cedere - addressed to one person

Nolite credere - addressed to more than one