Lectio prima
Latīnē loqueris?Latī́nē lóqueris?
[Do you speak Latin?] (in-latin you-speak?)
Nōndum latīnē loquor: haec mihi prīma lēctiō est.Nōndum latī́nē loquor: haec mihi prīma lḗctiō est.
[I still do not speak Latin] (not-yet in-latin I-speak): [this] (to-me) [is my] first lesson (is).
Cito latīnē loquēris.Cito latī́nē loquḗris.
[You will speak Latin quickly] (quickly in-latin you[sg.]-will-speak).
Lingua latīna difficilis est.Lingua latī́na diffícilis est.
[Latin] (language latin) is difficult.
Minimē! Lingua latīna difficilis nōn est.Mínimē! Lingua latī́na diffícilis nōn est.
Not-at-all! Latin is not difficult.
Rēctē dīcis, sed Rōma nōn ūnō diē aedificāta est.Rēctē dīcis, sed Rōma nōn ūnō diē aedificā́ta est.
[You are right] (rightly you[sg.]-say), but Rome [was not built] (not) in-one day (having-been-built is).
Loquor, loqueris, loquitur, loquī.Loquor, lóqueris, lóquitur, loquī.
I-speak, you[sg.]-speak, he-speaks, to-speak.
Dīcis, est, difficilis.Dīcis, est, diffícilis.
You[sg.] say, it is, difficult.
Latīnē, rēctē, lingua latīna.Latī́nē, rēctē, lingua latī́na.
in-latin, rightly, Latin language.
Notes
The “you” is singular here. In Latin form for “you” is different when addressing one person and when addressing several people.
The hyphen (-) joins several English words which serve as the translation of a single Latin word.
Today let it suffice to notice that word order in Latin is not always the same as that in English. Thus the verb is often put back at the end of the sentence, but this is not an absolute rule. You will see that you will easily get used to this style of construction.
Read this lesson noting carefully the pronunciation. Recite every sentence several times aloud, as we said in the introduction, and compare each sentence with its translation. Do not seek anything else for the moment, because it is much too early to try to analyze the construction of sentences. Trust us, we are taking you by the hand and we shall not drop you!
For the moment, the important thing is to mark the accentuation well [this is of course a remark for native French speakers, who don't have a movable accent in their language], that is to say, to pronounce the letters in bold with greater emphasis. Thus you must have noticed that it was accentuation which enabled you to recognize the form loqueris (you speak) from the form loqueris (you will speak), i.e. to distinguish the present from the future tense.
REMARK: These two forms differ, moreover, by the quantity of their syllables (see the introduction):
present tense: loqueris, (e is short);
future tense: loquéris, (é is long).
If you have the audio recordings, listen several times to the lesson while repeating each sentence in your mind. Then recite it aloud, following the book, while imitating what you heard as well as you can. Finally, adjust your pronunciation, by again listening to the audio recording.