Led by Magister Simulacrum
About this course
The second course of the WJEC Eduqas GCSE Latin series. Nouns told you who or what; verbs tell you what is happening, when, and by whom. Latin does the who with personal endings — the last two or three letters of a verb carry the subject, so that amo is "I love" and amamus is "we love" without needing a separate pronoun. The when is carried by tense markers built between the stem and the personal ending. Learn those two layers separately and the whole system clicks into place.
Magister hosts. The approach is the same: see the form in real Latin before seeing the paradigm. You will meet the present tense through actual sentences, the imperfect through narrative passages where it signals continuous or repeated past action, and the perfect through the characteristic crack of decisive completed action that gives Roman prose its drive.
This course covers only the indicative active — Course 3 handles the passive, the subjunctive, the irregulars, the participles, and the imperatives. Between them the two courses close the verb system entirely.
Led by Magister Simulacrum
The question
In English we say *I love* and *we love* — the pronoun carries the person, the verb stays the same. In Latin, the pronoun is optional and the verb does the work. How?
Outcome
The student can identify the person and number of any Latin verb by its ending, state which conjugation a verb belongs to from its principal parts, and explain why Latin word order can place the verb wherever suits emphasis without losing the subject. (WJEC App B · Regular verbs of all four conjugations)
Led by Magister Simulacrum
The question
What does the present tense in Latin actually cover, and how do its forms differ across the four conjugations?
Outcome
The student can conjugate any regular verb of the four conjugations in the present indicative active, identify the conjugation from the principal parts, translate present-tense Latin into appropriate English (simple, progressive, emphatic), and recognise the historic present in narrative. (WJEC App B · Present indicative active)
Led by Magister Simulacrum
The question
What does the imperfect express in Latin, and why does it dominate narrative prose?
Outcome
The student can conjugate any regular verb in the imperfect indicative active, choose the correct English translation for a given imperfect based on its context, and recognise in narrative prose which past actions are durative (imperfect) and which are punctual (perfect). (WJEC App B · Imperfect indicative active)
Led by Magister Simulacrum
The question
The Latin future has two different shapes depending on the conjugation. What are they, and why?
Outcome
The student can conjugate any regular verb in the future indicative active, disambiguate future forms from imperfect forms (especially the 3rd singular *-bit* vs *-bat*), and recognise the two conjugation-family patterns without confusion. (WJEC App B · Future indicative active)
Led by Magister Simulacrum
The question
The perfect tense carries the weight of Roman storytelling — the decisive, completed actions that drive a narrative. Why is it the most unpredictable tense to form?
Outcome
The student can identify the perfect stem of any verb from its principal parts, conjugate any perfect given the stem, distinguish perfect forms from imperfect and present by their endings, and explain why the perfect carries narrative propulsion that the imperfect does not. (WJEC App B · Perfect indicative active)
Led by Magister Simulacrum
The question
"Had done" in English — the pluperfect signals an action completed before another past action. How does Latin form it, and why is it the easiest tense to recognise?
Outcome
The student can conjugate any regular verb in the pluperfect indicative active, recognise pluperfect forms in continuous Latin by the *-era-* marker, translate them correctly into English, and at the end of the course command the full five-tense indicative active system across all four conjugations. (WJEC App B · Pluperfect indicative active)