The Dative Case in Latin: An Overview
Learn how to recognize and understand the Dative Case in Latin, its importance in distinguishing between direct and indirect objects, and its role in progressing to other cases. This course is essential for learners of Latin preparing for exams or seeking a solid foundation in the language.
What you’ll learn
- Learn how to recognise the Dative Case in Latin
- Learn how to distinguish between similar endings of the Latin nouns
- Learn why the Dative Case exists
- Gain a solid understanding of the Dative Case as the Latin equivalent of direct and indirect objects in English
- Prepare yourself for progress to the Genitive and Ablative Cases
In this course of video lessons, I want to give a brief explanation of the dative case in Latin – how to recognise it and what it does.
If you are not able to recognise the dative case, or not able to understand how it is used, your progress in Latin will come to a sudden and perhaps a final stop. If you do know the dative, you will have no trouble with the genitive and ablative. Indeed, you will have no further trouble in principle with learning Latin.
Therefore – and here is a phrase, I will use several times in this course of videos – a full understanding of the dative case is of critical importance. You cannot make solid progress in Latin until you have mastered it. Therefore these videos. In them I explain how to recognise the dative case, and how to distinguish it from other case-endings that are identical and that can be confusing. I also show the basic use of the dative, which is to show the distinction in Latin between direct and indirect objects in a sentence. Finally, I look at some of the other uses of the dative.
I hope you will find the videos useful, and that you will be encouraged to check out my other courses.
Who this course is for:
- Learners of Latin for the National Latin Examination in America, or GCSE Latin in England, or for the Latin component of the Common Entrance examination
