Apud aviam nobis semper panis et mel dulce sunt.

Latin often expresses possession with the verb esse (to be) + a dative noun or pronoun.

So:

nobis ... sunt
literally = they are to/for us
natural English = we have

That is called the dative of possession.

So instead of saying we have bread and sweet honey, Latin says something more like bread and sweet honey are available to us.

A version with habemus would also be possible, but this sentence is using a very common Latin way of expressing possession.

Because nobis is not the grammatical subject. It is the possessor.

In the dative-of-possession construction:

• the thing possessed is in the nominative
• the person who has it is in the dative
• the verb is a form of esse

So here:

• panis et mel dulce = the things possessed
• nobis = to us / for us
• sunt = are

Compare:

• mihi liber est = I have a book
  literally, a book is to me

They are nominative, because they are the grammatical subject of sunt.

Even though English says we have bread and honey, Latin is structurally saying:

bread and sweet honey are to us

So the things that are there — panis and mel — are nominative.

A learner may especially wonder about panis, because panis can be both nominative singular and genitive singular. Here it is nominative because it is one of the subjects of sunt.

Because the subject is compound:

panis et mel dulce

That means bread and sweet honey — two things joined by et.

Even though each noun is singular by itself, together they make a plural idea, so Latin uses sunt = are, not est = is.

Apud is a preposition that takes the accusative.

With a person, apud often means something like:

• with
• at the house of
• in the presence of

So apud aviam means at grandmother’s or more literally at grandmother’s place / with grandmother.

Because apud always takes the accusative, the noun is aviam, not avia.

Latin often uses apud + accusative of a person to mean at someone’s place.

So:

• apud aviam = at grandmother’s
• apud amicum = at a friend’s

This is a normal idiomatic way to express location with people.

English uses a possessive idea — grandmother’s — but Latin does not need to copy that structure. It simply says apud aviam.

Because dulce agrees with mel.

• mel is neuter singular
• the adjective dulcis, dulce has dulce as its neuter singular form

So:

• dulcis panis = sweet bread
• mel dulce = sweet honey

Since the adjective here goes with mel, the form must be dulce.

Most naturally, it describes only mel.

So the phrase is best understood as:

panis et mel dulce = bread and sweet honey

A learner might wonder whether it could mean bread and honey are sweet, but that is much less likely here, because dulce is singular and agrees neatly with mel. If Latin wanted the adjective to describe both nouns together, you would normally expect a plural adjective.

So the most straightforward reading is:

• panis = bread
• mel dulce = sweet honey

Latin word order is much freer than English word order because Latin shows grammatical relationships mainly through endings, not position.

So Latin can place words for emphasis or style:

• Apud aviam comes first to set the scene
• nobis appears early to show the possessor
• semper is placed before the things possessed
• mel dulce keeps noun and adjective together

English depends much more on a fixed order like subject–verb–object, but Latin does not.

The sentence could be rearranged in other ways without changing the basic meaning, as long as the endings stay correct.

Because classical Latin has no articles.

So panis can mean:

• bread
• the bread
• a loaf of bread
  depending on context

And mel can mean:

• honey
• the honey

Latin leaves that kind of detail to context, while English usually has to choose an article.

So in this sentence, English translation adds whatever article sounds natural, but Latin itself does not include one.