Nauta aquam bibit et cibum amat.

Yes, -a often signals a first-declension noun, and many first-declension nouns are feminine. But not all of them are.

Nauta means sailor and belongs to the first declension, so it has first-declension endings. Even so, it is usually masculine because it refers to a male person by meaning. Latin has some nouns like this, especially words for jobs or roles, such as:

• nauta = sailor
• agricola = farmer
• poēta = poet

So nauta looks feminine in form, but it is commonly masculine in meaning.

They are in the accusative singular, which is the case often used for a direct object.

In this sentence, the sailor is doing two actions:

• drinking water
• loving/liking food

So:

• aqua = water
• aquam = water as the direct object
• cibus = food
• cibum = food as the direct object

The -m ending is a very common sign of the accusative singular in Latin.

Because nauta is in the nominative case, which is the case normally used for the subject of the sentence.

Latin uses endings much more than English does. In English, word order usually tells you who is doing the action. In Latin, the case ending helps tell you that.

Here:

• nauta = nominative singular, so it is the subject
• aquam and cibum = accusative singular, so they are objects

So the sailor is the one doing the drinking and loving.

Both are third-person singular present active indicative verbs.

That means they describe what he/she/it is doing in the present:

• bibit = drinks / is drinking
• amat = loves / likes

More specifically:

• bibit comes from bibere = to drink
• amat comes from amāre = to love

The ending -t is the key sign here: it usually means he/she/it.

Because Latin often leaves the subject pronoun out when it is already clear from the verb ending.

The verbs bibit and amat both have -t, which tells you the subject is third-person singular: he, she, or it.

Since nauta is already present as the subject, Latin does not need to add a separate pronoun. So instead of saying something like The sailor he drinks..., Latin just says nauta ... bibit.

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

So nauta can mean:

• a sailor
• the sailor

And aquam can mean:

• water
• the water

The exact sense depends on context. Latin speakers did not need separate words for articles the way English does.

It matters, but not in the same way as in English.

Because Latin uses case endings, the sentence can often be rearranged without changing the basic meaning. So these would still mean roughly the same thing:

• Nauta aquam bibit et cibum amat.
• Aquam nauta bibit et cibum amat.
• Nauta cibum amat et aquam bibit.

The endings still show:

• nauta = subject
• aquam, cibum = objects

However, changing word order can change emphasis or style. The given order is a very straightforward, beginner-friendly one.

Et means and.

Here it links the two actions done by the same subject:

• aquam bibit = drinks water
• cibum amat = loves/likes food

So the full sentence has one subject, nauta, doing two things:

1. drinking water
2. loving/liking food

Not always in the strongest emotional sense.

Amāre can mean to love, but depending on context it can also be understood more broadly as to like or to be fond of. In a simple sentence like this, cibum amat may sound more natural in English as he likes food than he loves food, depending on the translation style.

So the Latin verb is the same, but English may choose different wording depending on context.

You would usually look them up like this:

• nauta → nauta, nautae = sailor
• aquam → aqua, aquae = water
• cibum → cibus, cibī = food
• bibit → bibō, bibere = drink
• amat → amō, amāre = love

For nouns, dictionaries usually give the nominative singular and genitive singular.

For verbs, dictionaries usually give the first-person singular present and the infinitive.

So when you see an inflected form like aquam or bibit, you usually work backward to the dictionary form.

Because they belong to different declensions.

Both words are in the accusative singular, but different noun classes use different accusative endings:

• aqua is a first-declension noun, so its accusative singular is aquam
• cibus is a second-declension noun, so its accusative singular is cibum

So the grammatical job is the same, but the form changes according to the noun’s declension pattern.