Puer nomen actoris obliviscitur, sed soror eius id bene scit.

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

• puer can mean the boy or a boy
• soror can mean the sister or a sister
• nomen actoris can mean the actor’s name or an actor’s name

The context tells you which English wording is best.

Because obliviscitur comes from a deponent verb: obliviscor.

Deponent verbs use passive-looking forms, but they have active meanings. So:

• obliviscitur looks like he/she/it is forgotten
• but it actually means he/she/it forgets

Here it means the boy forgets.

The dictionary form is obliviscor.

So:

• obliviscor = I forget
• obliviscitur = he/she/it forgets

If you are learning principal parts, you may see it listed as obliviscor, oblivisci, oblitus sum.

A few things show this:

• puer is clearly nominative singular: the boy
• obliviscitur is third person singular: he forgets
• nomen could be nominative or accusative in form, but here the sense and structure show it is the object: the boy forgets the name

So puer is the one doing the action, and nomen actoris is what he forgets.

Because it depends on nomen.

• nomen = name
• actoris = of the actor

So nomen actoris literally means the name of the actor, which is natural English as the actor’s name.

This genitive is very common in Latin for possession or close relationship.

Because suus refers back to the subject of its own clause, while eius refers to someone else.

In the second clause, the subject is soror:

• sed soror eius id bene scit = but his sister knows it well

If Latin said soror sua, that would mean her own sister, referring back to the subject sister herself, which is not the idea here.

So eius is correct because the sister belongs to, or is associated with, the boy, not with herself.

By itself, eius can mean his, her, or its. The form does not change for gender.

So Latin relies on context. In this sentence, the previous person mentioned is puer (the boy), so soror eius is understood as his sister.

Id refers back to nomen actoris.

In English we would usually say it:

• Puer nomen actoris obliviscitur = The boy forgets the actor’s name
• sed soror eius id bene scit = but his sister knows it well

So id = it, meaning the name.

Because the pronoun refers to nomen, not to actor.

• nomen is a neuter noun
• so the pronoun referring back to it is also neuter singular: id

Even though actor is masculine, that is not the word being replaced. The sister knows the name, not the actor.

Literally, it means knows well.

• scit = knows
• bene = well

Latin often uses bene with verbs in a very natural way, just as English does. Here it suggests that the sister knows the name clearly or correctly.

Yes. Scit is the present tense of scio:

• scio = I know
• scit = he/she/it knows

So soror eius id bene scit means his sister knows it well.

A very literal order would be:

• Puer = the boy
• nomen actoris = the actor’s name
• obliviscitur = forgets
• sed = but
• soror eius = his sister
• id = it
• bene = well
• scit = knows

So, very literally:

The boy the actor’s name forgets, but his sister it well knows.

Latin word order is more flexible than English because the endings show the grammatical roles. Still, this sentence is fairly natural Latin: the verbs come late, and related words are grouped together.

Usually forgets is the best English translation here.

Latin present tense can cover several English ideas, depending on context, such as:

• forgets
• is forgetting
• sometimes even a more general does forget

But in a simple sentence like this, English normally uses the plain present:

• The boy forgets the actor’s name, but his sister knows it well.