Mater maesta epistulam legit.

Because mater is a third-declension noun, not a first-declension noun.

Its dictionary form is mater, matris, meaning mother. In this sentence, mater is in the nominative singular, which is the case normally used for the subject.

So even though it is feminine, it does not have to look like a first-declension noun such as puella.

Maesta is an adjective meaning sad. It is in the feminine nominative singular form so that it agrees with mater.

In Latin, adjectives agree with the nouns they describe in:

• gender
• number
• case

So:

• mater = feminine, singular, nominative
• maesta = feminine, singular, nominative

That matching tells you that maesta describes mater.

Because of agreement.

Maesta is nominative singular feminine, which matches mater.

But epistulam is accusative singular feminine. If the adjective described epistulam, it would need to be maestam, not maesta.

So the sentence says that the mother is sad, not that the letter is sad.

Because epistulam is the direct object of the verb.

The verb legit means that someone reads or has read, and the thing being read is the letter. In Latin, the direct object usually goes in the accusative case.

So:

• epistula = nominative singular, letter
• epistulam = accusative singular, letter as direct object

The ending -am is the normal accusative singular ending for a first-declension noun.

Legit is third person singular from legere, meaning to read.

A learner should know one especially important thing here: the written form legit can represent either:

• present tense: reads
• perfect tense: read or has read

In ordinary classroom sentences, context usually makes the intended meaning clear. If your lesson gives the meaning as present, then here it is being understood as reads.

So the verb form tells you:

• third person = he, she, it
• singular = one person
• here, the subject is mater

Latin does not have articles like English the and a/an.

So mater can mean:

• mother
• a mother
• the mother

And epistulam can mean:

• a letter
• the letter

Context tells you which is most natural.

Because the verb ending already tells you the subject is third person singular.

In English, you often need a subject pronoun such as she reads. In Latin, the ending of the verb often makes that unnecessary.

Here, -t in legit shows he/she/it. Since mater is also present, Latin does not need an extra pronoun.

Yes. Latin word order is much more flexible than English word order because the endings show what each word is doing.

So the following can still mean essentially the same thing:

• Mater maesta epistulam legit
• Mater epistulam legit maesta
• Epistulam mater legit
• Maesta mater epistulam legit

However, changing the order can change the emphasis or style.

A very common neutral pattern in Latin is for the verb to come near the end, which is what happens here.

No. In Latin, an adjective can come before or after the noun.

So both of these are possible:

• maesta mater
• mater maesta

Because the endings show the relationship, Latin does not rely as heavily on word order as English does.

In this sentence, mater maesta still means the sad mother.

A learner often wants to know what forms to look up in a dictionary. They are:

• mater, matris = mother
• maestus, maesta, maestum = sad
• epistula, epistulae = letter
• lego, legere, legi, lectum = read

Those dictionary forms help you identify the declension or conjugation and understand why the words look the way they do in the sentence.