Infinitives
All Latin and all English verbs have infinitives. The infinitive of a verb is the
basic form of the verb. In English we translate it as “to….” In other words, the base of the verb I live, or you live is to live. Other examples:
To love
To sit
To read
In Latin, the infinitive is one word, there is no word equivalent to “to.” For instance, the infinitive, of to live is habitare. The infinitive of almost all Latin verbs ends in either-- are, ére, ere or ire. Some other examples are: amare—to love sedére—to sit legere—to read
First conjugation verbs are verbs that end in are in the infinitive. Of the above words, only amare is a first conjugation verb. Some other examples are: habitare (to live) amare (to love) ambulare (to walk)
Second conjugation verbs end in ére in the infinitive. Examples: sedére (to sit) vidére (to see)
The accent above the first e is important, since the third conjugation also ends in ere, but there is no accent in the third. Examples of third conjugation verbs: scribere (to write) legere ( to read)
Fourth conjugation verbs end in ire. We have not seen any in our book yet, but some examples are: dormire (to sleep) audire (to hear or listen)

Making Verbs Personal
To make Latin verbs personal, or make them pertain to particular people, we add personal endings to the stem. The personal endings are: o (I) s (you) mus (we) tis (you) t (he, she, it) nt (they)
These endings are used for all verbs, whether in the first, second, third, or fourth conjugations.
To form verbs with person the stem of the infinitive is found by dropping the
–re from the infinitive: amare----ama sedére---sedé legere—lege dormire---dormi then add the ending. *
So, for example, habitare becomes: habito (I live) (slight irregularity here) habitas (you live) habitat (he, she, it lives) habitamus (we live) habitatis (you live) habant (they live)
* The third conjugation is irregular in that after the –re gets dropped, the remaining e changes to i in most forms, but that is something we will address later.