Puella lunam aspicit.

Because Latin shows a noun’s job in the sentence by its case ending.

• puella ends in -a, which here is nominative singular: the subject form.
• lunam ends in -am, which here is accusative singular: the direct object form.

So:

• puella = the girl doing the action
• lunam = the moon receiving the action

That is one of the biggest differences from English: Latin often uses endings, not word order, to show who is doing what.

You know from two clues:

1. Its case ending: puella is nominative, which is the usual case for the subject.
2. The verb ending: aspicit is third person singular, so it goes with a singular subject such as puella.

So the sentence structure is:

• puella = subject
• aspicit = verb
• lunam = direct object

The ending -am tells you that lunam is accusative singular.

The accusative is commonly used for the direct object, the person or thing directly affected by the verb. In this sentence, the moon is what the girl is looking at, so luna changes to lunam.

A beginner pattern worth remembering:

• puella → nominative singular
• puellam → accusative singular

Likewise:

• luna → nominative singular
• lunam → accusative singular

Because aspicit is a third-person singular present tense verb form.

It means he/she/it looks at, sees, or watches, depending on context.

The ending -it tells you:

• third person = he / she / it
• singular = one person or thing
• present tense = happening now

Since puella is singular and means girl, aspicit is translated as she looks at or the girl looks at.

The form you would usually look up is aspicio.

So:

• aspicio = I look at / I see
• aspicit = he/she/it looks at / sees

This verb belongs to the third conjugation (more exactly, a -io third-conjugation verb). A learner does not need to master that immediately, but it helps explain why the form looks the way it does.

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

So puella can mean:

• the girl
• a girl

And lunam can mean:

• the moon
• a moon

The context tells you which is most natural. In many beginner translations, English uses the here because it sounds more natural: the girl looks at the moon.

Yes. Latin word order is flexible because the endings already show the grammar.

All of these can mean the same basic thing:

• Puella lunam aspicit
• Puella aspicit lunam
• Lunam puella aspicit
• Aspicit puella lunam

The endings still show:

• puella = subject
• lunam = object

However, different word orders can give different emphasis. For example:

• Lunam puella aspicit may emphasize the moon
• Puella lunam aspicit is a very straightforward neutral order for learners

A simple classroom pronunciation is:

poo-EL-lah LOO-nam AS-pi-kit

A few helpful points:

• puella has two vowel sounds at the start: pu-el-la
• c in aspicit is always a hard k sound in Classical Latin
• the stress is usually:
  • puELla
  • LUnam
  • ASpicit

So aspicit sounds like AS-pi-kit, not like English ass-pih-sit.

Not always exactly. Latin words often cover a range of meanings.

aspicit can mean things like:

• looks at
• sees
• beholds
• gazes at

In a simple sentence like this, looks at is often the clearest beginner translation. But depending on context, a slightly different English verb might fit better.

Both puella and luna are first-declension nouns.

That is why they have familiar singular endings like:

• nominative singular: -a
• accusative singular: -am

So:

• puella / puellam
• luna / lunam

This is a very common and useful noun pattern for beginners to learn early.

Yes, you could.

Latin verbs often include the subject inside the verb ending. Since aspicit already means he/she/it looks at, Latin can leave the subject unstated if it is understood from context.

So:

• aspicit lunam = she/he looks at the moon

If you specifically want to say the girl is the one doing it, then including puella makes that clear.