Is there an easy way of knowing what declension the noun is (in latin)??

Question

i know the endings...but like if your just given the nominative ...then what??

Answer 1

memorizing the endings. i know that that sucks, but i finally did it once for my final and after that i just knew it all and it made EVERYTHING so much easier. soooo much! like all the translations and stuff and it will help u on higher levels. good luck!

Answer 2

This is one of the reasons that Latin nouns are always given with the nominative and genitive together. Even then it is sometimes difficult to determine which they are, especially in gender.
Using words over and over is the only way to become accustomed to the endings. Even after a few years in Latin at the University, students still make simple mistakes, such as confusing the 4th declension with a second declension noun.
My advice is to train yourself to run through the entire declension; sometimes by getting to the plural genitive, for example, it just won't look or sound right.

Answer 3

Both good answers so far; there's really no substitute for memorizing the endings.

If you're just given the nominative, though, it's pretty safe to guess that if it ends in "a", it's first declension; "-us" or "-um", second declension; anything else, third declension. Fourth and fifth declension nouns are relatively rare.

Answer 4

1. Always learn the nouns with their genitive and gender.
2. Look them up. Any good dictionary will give you either genitive or declension, and gender, of course.
3. See 1.