Breakdown of Magister te in bibliotheca exspectat.
Questions & Answers about Magister te in bibliotheca exspectat.
Because te is the accusative form of the second-person singular pronoun, and here you is the direct object of the verb.
- tu = you as the subject
- te = you as the object
So Latin says:
- Tu exspectas = You are waiting
- Magister te exspectat = The teacher is waiting for you
Because the Latin verb exspectat can take a direct object. English usually says wait for someone, but Latin simply says wait someone with that verb.
So:
- te exspectat literally looks like waits you
- but idiomatically it means waits for you
This is a very common thing in Latin: the verb may use a different construction from the most natural English translation.
Magister is nominative singular, because it is the subject of the sentence: the person doing the waiting.
The verb exspectat means he/she/it waits, so we look for a singular subject. fits that role perfectly: