Very good! But not quite. Look again at Me tibi misit and so on. The subject to misit is Cornelia herself. The last sentence is a statement about what Marcus would do if he were with Cornelia, but now that Titus is here, he’ll change plans.
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Fantastic, well, an oppidum becomes all these other things once it’s incorporated into an organised Res Publica.
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Vocabulary Challenge: Label the Animals
Put your answer in a spoiler tag to save space.
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Vacha, nuorsa, chavra, püerch, giallina, anatra, giat, chan, louv, vuolp, aviöl, furmicla, pesch, rana, schimgia.
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You speak Romansch? Cool! Fun to see those sound changes.
Hai, scha tü sasch francês ed ün païn talian esi fich simpel…
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The Japanese sentence explained:
私たちは港市に向かっています。
watashitachi wa kooshi ni mukattaimasu.
We are sailing to the city.
| Japanese | Kana | Romaji | Explanation |
|---|---|---|---|
| 私たち | わたしたち | watashitachi | we |
| は | ・ | wa | (p.) topic/subject (actually ha but pronounced wa) |
| 港市 | こう・し | kooshi | city (specifically with a port / arbour) |
| に | ・ | ni | (p.) follows a word indicating a place where s.o./s.t. moves |
| 向かっています | むかっています | mukatteimasu | sailing |
(p.) stands for particle.
For the world city, I chose port city that is not exactly what Simple Sentence of the day states.
The verb 向かう (mukau) is an U verb. So, first, I have transformed it into TE-form 向かって (mukatte) as intermediate step before to obtain the progressive form (sail-ing) adding ~いる (a RU-verb). Afterward, I obtained from the RU-verb obtained in that way the polite form changing ~いる into ~います as for any RU-verb.
To better visualize it:
| 向か・う | mukau | (verb inf.) |
| 向か・って | mukatte | (TE-form of the verb) |
| 向か・って・いる | mukatteiru | (progressive form; also act like a normal RU-verb) |
| 向か・って・います | mukatteimasu | (polite form of the RU-verb) |
with the practice, this shall be done in a while for any U-verb 
.
EDIT:
向かう meaning is ‘to go towards’, ‘to head towards’.
To say “sailing” one of the choice can be to use:
- 航海 (‘sail’, ‘voyage’) and use the SURU-verb form 航海する （こう・かい・する）(kookai suru).
- The TE-form of a SURU-verb (an irregular verb) is 航海して （こう・かい・して）(kookai shite).
- The progressive form is obtained adding 〜いる 航海している （こう・かい・している）(kookai shite iru) where often the い is omitted as in 航海してる （こう・かい・してる）(kookai shite ru).
- The polite form would be 航海しています （こう・かい・しています）(kookai shite imasu).
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Welcome back c: I was worried this thread was turning into Double Latin
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I hope it won’t turn into a Babele
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You inspired me to make a proper breakdown of my sentence as well.
We are sailing to the city.
In oppidum nāvigāmus.
| Latin | Explanation |
|---|---|
| in | Latin in covers both the English prepositions in and on. It also has some grammatical uses that I’m still getting to grips with, and this sentence employs one of them. Here it’s being used to indicate direction towards, to, or into a place. |
| oppidum | An oppidum was a fortified town. As Sanonius said, urbs, mūnicipium, colōnia, and cīvitās could also have been used in various contexts. The word is in the accusative case, apparently because that’s just how it’s done when you use it in this grammatical structure. Oppidum is explicitly singular (its plural is oppida). In Latin there was no linguistic distinction between definite nouns (“the city”) and indefinite nouns (“a city”). |
| nāvigāmus | The root of this word is nāvigō (to sail.) It derives from nāvis (ship). In Latin a verb can be conjugated to show person (first, second, third), pluralism, and over twenty tenses. Thus each verb can presumably accept over a hundred conjugations, making it extremely expressive. Therefore Latin rarely requires pronouns to be used. There are four conjugation patterns. Nāvigō is in the first conjugation, which is described at https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Latin_first_conjugation. We want the first-person plural form of the active indicative tense, which is nāvigāmus. |
PS. In Volapük, the first popular constructed language, verbs could be inflected in 1,584 ways.
How about a linguistic comparison table?
| Language | Number of noun inflections | Number of verb conjugations |
|---|---|---|
| English | 2 (singular and plural) | 3 (eg. sail, -ed, -ing) – also the remnants of an ablaut system |
| Latin | 12 (nom. s. & pl., acc. s. & pl., gen. s. & p., dat. s. & pl., abl. s & pl., voc. s & pl.)* | Over 100(?) Verbs can express person, pluralism, and tense |
(*) In practice many of these are the same, eg. the vocative usually mirrors the nominative.
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no, just て form is not “-ing”
ている is
and ています is polite form of ている
just て is used to tell someone to do something or to list events
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Those are just the kind of corrections I’m looking for.
It was not clear to me if Te-form transformation is required before using ている for progressive.
If I understood well there is another step. If not please correct me.
| 向か・う | mukau | (verb inf.) |
| 向か・って | mukatte | (TE-form of the verb) |
| 向か・って・いる | mukatteiru | (progressive form, becomes a RU-verb) |
| 向か・って・います | mukatteimasu | (polite form of the RU-verb) |
Or instead the Te-form is not required and does it is possible to transform any verb directly into progressive with ている?
EDIT: the answer is yes. I finally found a section of the Tae Kim grammar where this is explained clearly. The TE-form transformation is only the first step required to add ~いる and transform the verb into a RU-verb. So ~ている (one of the forms of progressive) requires - for the U-verb 向かう (“to sail”) - the transformations steps reported in the table above.
PS: I’m just using this post as an excuse to study Japanese (including errors and corrections). 
EDIT 2 in another grammar (A Dictionary of Japanese Grammar, mentioned) is written:
When TE-verb is a motion verb such as iku ‘go’, kuru ‘come’ and kaeru ‘return’, the meaning of TE-verb ~iru is not ‘be ~ing’. For example, itte iru means ‘to have gone to some place and to still be there’. The following sentences provide examples:
-
次郎はアメリカに行っている。
Jiroo wa Amerika ni itte iru.
Jiro has gone to America and is there. -
ベックさんはもう家に帰っています。
Bekku-san wa moo ie ni kaette imasu.
Mr. Beck has already returned home and is there.
So, following this rule, since ‘to sail’ is a motion verb the rule should apply as well. Consequently, the original sentence should be translated:
- 私たちは港市に向かっています。
watashitachi wa kooshi ni mukatta imasu.
We have sailed to the city (and we are still there).
I’m a little bit confused now.
Probably sailing is not properly a motion verb but a way in which we reached the city.
Can someone more expert than me clarify?
ANSWER (thanks to @Vsotvep):
向かう is not a motion verb, but it expresses a state-of-being, namely the state of being on your way somewhere.
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Oh my god!.. are you trying to discourage me? 
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So you are confirming that Japanese is harder than Russian! 
Have you seen the EDIT 2 in the previous post?
Any idea on how to deal with what I found in the grammar?
I’m 20 kyu at NihonGo, no idea
(‘Nihon’ - that’s how Japanese people themselves call Japan, ‘Go’ - language)
Jaarimasendeshida?
Jaa - ri - ma - sen - de - shi - da, seven syllables, that’s a little heavy yeah.
In Latin I think we would conjugate nōn fuī, “not was”, depending on the plurality and person.
eg. Mēus nōn fuī frigus, I wasn’t cold.
Ja-a-ri-ma-se-n-de-shi-ta
9 ‘syllables’ or morae, actually 
Slightly more polite is to use 10: De-wa-a-ri-ma-se-n-de-shi-ta
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Morae are not the same as syllables.
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True, but nobody counts syllables in Japanese
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