Magistra nuper membranam longam emit, quia veteres membranae incommodae erant.

Magistra is in the nominative singular, which is the case normally used for the subject in Latin. It means teacher and is feminine, so the sentence is about a female teacher.

If it were a male teacher, you would usually see magister instead.

Because membranam is the direct object of emit, and so it is in the accusative singular. The adjective longam must agree with the noun it describes in case, number, and gender, so it is also accusative singular feminine.

So:

• membranam = accusative singular feminine
• longam = accusative singular feminine

This agreement is one of the most important features of Latin adjectives.

In Latin, adjective placement is much more flexible than in English. Both membranam longam and longam membranam are possible.

The endings show which words go together, so Latin does not depend on word order as heavily as English does. Here, membranam longam is a perfectly normal way to say a long sheet / parchment.

This is a very common question, because emit can represent either:

• present tense: he/she buys
• perfect tense: he/she bought

The context tells you which one is meant. Here, nuper means recently, which strongly suggests a completed past action, so emit is understood as bought.

Nuper is an adverb, meaning recently or not long ago. It modifies the verb emit.

So it tells us when the teacher bought the parchment.

Because the two words are doing different jobs in different clauses.

• membranam = one parchment/sheet, the thing the teacher bought
• membranae = the old parchments/sheets, the subject of the quia clause

So the sentence contrasts:

• one new item bought now
• several old items that were inconvenient

This kind of shift is completely normal.

Because here membranae is the subject of the second clause, so it must be nominative plural, not accusative plural.

Also, vetus is a third-declension adjective, so its feminine nominative plural form is veteres.

So:

• membranae = nominative plural feminine
• veteres = nominative plural feminine, agreeing with membranae

Even though membranae is a first-declension noun, its adjective does not have to look first-declension. Adjectives follow their own declension pattern while still agreeing in case, number, and gender.

Because it is a predicate adjective with erant.

After forms of esse (to be), Latin normally uses the nominative for both the subject and the adjective or noun that describes it. So:

• membranae = subject, nominative plural
• incommodae = predicate adjective, also nominative plural

In other words, the old parchments were inconvenient.

Erant is the imperfect of esse, meaning they were. The imperfect is used here because it describes an ongoing background situation or state: the old parchments were being inconvenient / were inconvenient over a period of time.

By contrast, emit refers to a single completed action: the teacher bought something.

So the tenses work nicely together:

• emit = completed action
• erant = ongoing past state or circumstance

Quia means because. It introduces a clause giving the reason for the action in the main clause.

So the structure is:

• main clause: Magistra nuper membranam longam emit
• reason clause: quia veteres membranae incommodae erant

In other words, the teacher bought the new parchment because the old ones were inconvenient.

Classical Latin does not have articles like English the and a/an. Whether a noun should be understood as a teacher, the teacher, a parchment, or the parchment depends on context.

So magistra can mean either a teacher or the teacher, depending on the situation. The same is true for membranam and membranae.

Yes, often it could. Because Latin uses case endings, the sentence could be rearranged in several ways and still mean essentially the same thing.

For example, Latin could move nuper, longam, or even the whole quia clause around for emphasis. The endings still show who is doing what.

That said, different word orders can create different emphasis or style, even when the core meaning stays the same.