Magistra dicit bonos discipulos magistris parere oportere.

The main verb is dicit = says.

Everything after dicit is the content of what the teacher says. So the sentence is built like this:

• Magistra dicit = The teacher says
• bonos discipulos magistris parere oportere = what she says

Because Latin usually does not use a separate word like English that in this kind of sentence.

Instead, Latin normally uses an accusative-and-infinitive construction for reported speech or indirect statement:

• English: The teacher says that ...
• Latin: Magistra dicit ...
  • an accusative + infinitive structure

So after dicit, Latin gives the statement in a different grammatical form rather than adding a word meaning that.

This is one of the first things English speakers usually notice.

There are two helpful ways to understand it:

1. After a verb like dicit, Latin often puts the subject of the reported statement into the accusative.
2. With oportet / oportere, the person who ought to do something is commonly put in the accusative anyway.

So bonos discipulos is not a direct object in the English sense. It is the group being spoken about: the good students are the ones who ought to obey.

Because parere takes the dative case.

That is something English speakers have to learn as a vocabulary fact:

• parere alicui = to obey someone

So:

• magistris = to the teachers / the teachers after obey

Even though English says obey the teachers, Latin uses the dative, not the accusative.

Because they are doing two different jobs.

• oportere = to be proper / to be necessary / ought
• parere = to obey

After dicit, Latin puts the reported statement into an infinitive construction, so oportere appears as an infinitive.

Then oportere itself needs an action: to obey. That action is expressed by another infinitive, parere.

So the structure is basically:

• Magistra dicit
• [bonos discipulos [magistris parere] oportere]

In other words: the teacher says good students ought to obey teachers.

Bonos discipulos are the ones doing the obeying.

A learner may be confused because bonos discipulos is accusative, not nominative. But in this construction, the accusative noun is still the group understood as carrying out the action of parere.

So:

• bonos discipulos = the ones who ought to obey
• magistris = the ones being obeyed

Because bonos has to agree with discipulos.

bonus, -a, -um is an adjective, so it must match the noun it describes in:

• gender
• number
• case

Here discipulos is:

• masculine
• plural
• accusative

So the adjective must also be:

• masculine
• plural
• accusative

That gives bonos discipulos.

Here is a quick breakdown:

• Magistra: nominative singular
  
  • the subject of dicit
• bonos discipulos: accusative plural
  
  • the students being spoken about in the reported statement; the ones who ought to obey
• magistris: dative plural
  
  • the people obeyed, because parere takes the dative

So the endings are what tell you each word's job.

A natural direct version would be:

Bonos discipulos magistris parere oportet.

That helps show what is happening:

• direct statement: oportet
• indirect statement after dicit: oportere

So dicit causes oportet to become oportere.

Yes. Latin word order is much freer than English word order because the endings show the grammar.

So this sentence could be rearranged in various ways without changing the basic meaning, for example to emphasize different words.

Still, the given order is perfectly normal:

• Magistra first: the speaker
• dicit next: the main action
• then the reported statement

A learner should focus more on the endings than on the exact word order.

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

So a Latin noun like magistra can mean:

• the teacher
• a teacher

and the exact sense depends on context.

The same is true for discipulos and magistris. English has to choose articles when translating, but Latin does not.