# recognizing future tense 3rd conjugation verbs [Mones / Leges]



## german.gabriel

I know this may sound lazy, but I'm having serious difficulty trying to differentiate between the present tense of the second conjugation (monere) and the future tense of the third conjugation (legere).

Mones / Leges
Monet / Leget
Monemus / Legemus
Monetis / Legetis
Monent / Legent

The honest way would be to memorize which verbs belong to each group, but is there any hint or cue for beginners?

Thank you very much


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## Cagey

I don't think so.

When you learn a verb, you must  learn its principal parts. The first two principal parts (the first person present and the present infinitive ***) tell you which conjugation the verb follows.

When you know that _mones _is from _moneo, monere_, and _leges_ is from_ lego, legere_, you know that _mones_ is a second conjugation present,  while l_eges _is third conjugation verb and therefore _leges_ is the future tense.

(***This is according to the system followed by English language textbooks. It's possible that Spanish language textbooks follow a different system and present the verbs differently. )


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## Scholiast

salvete!


Cagey said:


> When you learn a verb, you must to learn its principal parts


That is of course perfectly correct. Furthermore, incidentally, in handbooks which print macron signs, the 2nd. conjugn. infinitives are thereby distinguished (_monēre_, _sedēre_, _habēre_), where 3rd. conjug. verbs have none (_mittere_, _legere_, _ducere_ &c.).

Σ


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## wtrmute

I think Spanish language textbooks add in the second person singular of the Present Indicative Active along with the other principal parts: _moneo, mones, monere, monui, monitum_.  But there's no getting out of memorising at least the four.

In this sense, I think that introductory textbooks sin by omission: they usually start off by just giving the third person singular of the Present Indicative Active.  If they had, from Lesson 1, said something like: "The verb _occido_, _occidere_, _occidi_, _occisum_' means 'to kill'.  'He kills' is _occidit_.  _Brutus Caesarem occidit_ Brutus kills Caesar" etc. it would be simpler for students to go and associate those four words with every verb from the get-go instead of having this revealed to them in Lesson 25 and then having to go back and update that information for the couple of hundred verbs they had already memorised.


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## Scholiast

salvete iterum!


wtrmute said:


> In this sense, I think that introductory textbooks sin by omission...


Good point. In my own paedagogy for beginners (especially when developing Powerpoint slide-shows or handouts) I have generally followed the example of the original JACT Greek course in giving the principal parts (or other inflected forms) to be learned later, but shaded out, so that from the outset students get used to the idea that there will, later, be new forms to learn.
Σ


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## german.gabriel

Thank you to the three of you for your help.
It may sound old fashioned but transcribing the conjugation tables helps me to memorize them.


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## Scholiast

salve german.gabriel!


german.gabriel said:


> It may sound old fashioned but transcribing the conjugation tables helps me to memorize them.


Of course it does! It may be laborious, but if something goes in through the eye, and out through the hand, there is a good chance that some of it will stick in the brain.
There's a good reason why "old-fashioned" teaching- (or learning-) methods work: they have been tried and found to work for long centuries.
_optima fortuna faveat conatibus!_
Σ


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