Fors consilium nostrum mutat.

Fors is a noun. In this sentence it is the subject, so it is in the nominative singular.

Its basic meaning is something like chance, luck, or fortune, depending on context.

Because mutat means changes, and the thing doing the changing is fors.

So grammatically:

• fors = the one acting
• mutat = changes
• consilium nostrum = the thing being changed

That makes fors the subject.

Consilium is accusative singular.

It is in the accusative because it is the direct object of mutat. In other words, it is the thing that chance changes.

A learner might notice that consilium looks the same in the nominative and accusative singular. That is normal for many neuter nouns in Latin.

Because nostrum has to agree with consilium.

Consilium is:

• neuter
• singular
• accusative

So the possessive adjective must also be:

• neuter
• singular
• accusative

That gives nostrum.

So:

• noster = masculine nominative singular
• nostra = feminine nominative singular
• nostrum = neuter nominative/accusative singular

Here, nostrum means our.

Here it is a possessive adjective, because it is directly modifying consilium.

So consilium nostrum means our plan or our decision.

Latin nostrum can sometimes be a genitive pronoun meaning of us, but that is not what is happening here. In this sentence, it is simply the adjective agreeing with consilium.

Consilium can have several related meanings, such as:

• plan
• decision
• purpose
• advice
• strategy

In this sentence, plan or decision is probably the most natural meaning.

This is a good reminder that many Latin words cover a wider range of meanings than one single English word.

Mutat is:

• 3rd person
• singular
• present
• active
• indicative

It comes from the verb muto, mutare, meaning to change or alter.

So mutat means he/she/it changes.
Here the subject is fors, so the sense is chance changes.

Latin word order is much more flexible than English word order because Latin uses case endings to show grammatical roles.

Placing the verb at the end is very common in Latin, especially in simple prose sentences.

So:

• Fors consilium nostrum mutat
• literally: Chance our plan changes

In normal English, we rearrange it to Chance changes our plan.

Yes. Latin could rearrange them and still keep the same basic meaning, because the endings show the grammar.

For example, these would still be understandable:

• Consilium nostrum fors mutat
• Nostrum consilium fors mutat
• Mutat fors consilium nostrum

However, different orders can slightly change emphasis or style. The version you were given is a perfectly normal Latin sentence.

In Latin, adjectives can come before or after the noun they modify.

So both of these are possible in principle:

• consilium nostrum
• nostrum consilium

The first order is very common and natural. Latin does not follow English adjective placement rules as strictly as English does.

A common classroom pronunciation would be roughly:

Fors kon-SIL-ee-um NOS-trum MOO-taht

More carefully:

• fors = like force without the long English vowel
• consilium = kon-SIL-ee-um
• nostrum = NOS-trum
• mutat = MOO-taht

If using restored classical pronunciation, the c in consilium is always hard, like k.

Not exactly, though they are related in meaning.

• fors often means chance, luck, or random fortune
• fortuna often means fortune, sometimes almost like a personified force, Fortune

In many contexts they can be similar, but fors often feels a bit more like chance itself.

The sentence follows a simple pattern:

• Subject: fors
• Object: consilium nostrum
• Verb: mutat

So the structure is:

Subject + Object + Verb

That word order is very common in Latin, even though English usually prefers Subject + Verb + Object.