Nova magistra honesta esse dicitur.

Because dicitur is passive: she is said.

With verbs of saying in Latin, you often get two patterns:

• Active: aliqui novam magistram honestam esse dicunt = people say that the new teacher is honest
• Passive: nova magistra honesta esse dicitur = the new teacher is said to be honest

In the passive version, the person being talked about becomes the subject of the sentence, so magistra is nominative.

This is different from the English habit of thinking of say with a that-clause. Latin often prefers this personal passive + infinitive structure.

Because they both agree with magistra.

Magistra is:

• nominative
• singular
• feminine

So both adjectives must match it:

• nova = new, nominative singular feminine
• honesta = honest, nominative singular feminine

This is standard adjective agreement in Latin: adjectives agree with the noun they describe in gender, number, and case.

Esse is the present infinitive of sum, meaning to be.

After verbs of saying, thinking, knowing, and similar verbs, Latin commonly uses an infinitive clause. Here, honesta esse means to be honest.

So the structure is:

• dicitur = is said
• honesta esse = to be honest

Together: is said to be honest.

English sometimes uses that instead:

• It is said that the new teacher is honest

Latin often prefers the infinitive instead.

Dicitur comes from dico, dicere, dixi, dictum = to say.

Here it is:

• 3rd person singular
• present tense
• passive indicative

So it means is said.

It agrees with the singular subject magistra.

Because Latin usually does not use a that-clause after verbs of saying in the way English does.

English:

• They say that the new teacher is honest

Latin normally:

• Dicunt novam magistram honestam esse

And in the passive:

• Nova magistra honesta esse dicitur

So instead of a separate word for that, Latin uses an accusative + infinitive in the active, or a nominative + infinitive kind of pattern in this passive construction.

Latin word order is much more flexible than English word order.

English depends heavily on word order to show who is doing what. Latin shows that mostly through endings, so the words can move around more freely.

This sentence could be rearranged in several ways without changing the basic meaning, for example:

• Nova magistra honesta esse dicitur
• Honesta esse nova magistra dicitur
• Dicitur nova magistra honesta esse

The difference is mostly one of emphasis or style, not core meaning.

Putting nova magistra first can make the sentence start with the person being discussed.

Yes, very closely related.

In the active, Latin indirect statement usually has:

• an accusative subject
• an infinitive

Example:

• Dicunt novam magistram honestam esse
• They say that the new teacher is honest

In your sentence, the verb of saying has been made passive:

• Nova magistra honesta esse dicitur
• The new teacher is said to be honest

So it is basically the passive counterpart of the normal indirect statement construction.

Yes. That is the active version.

Compare:

• Novam magistram honestam esse dicunt
  They say that the new teacher is honest

• Nova magistra honesta esse dicitur
  The new teacher is said to be honest

The meaning is very similar, but the grammar is different:

• in the active sentence, novam magistram is accusative
• in the passive sentence, nova magistra is nominative

Usually nova simply means new. In context, though, that can naturally mean:

• new to the school
• newly appointed
• recently arrived

Latin often leaves that kind of detail to context. So nova magistra can mean the new teacher in the ordinary sense, without spelling out exactly how she is new.

Because the subject is one person: magistra = teacher (singular).

That is why all the agreeing words are singular too:

• nova
• magistra
• honesta
• dicitur = is said

If the sentence were plural, the forms would change, for example:

• Novae magistrae honestae esse dicuntur
  The new female teachers are said to be honest

So the singular endings help show that the sentence is about one woman.