Discipula sententiam iterum describere cogitur, quia sententia nondum integra est.

Discipula is nominative singular feminine, so it is the subject of the main clause.

• discipula = the female student / schoolgirl
• It matches the verb cogitur = is forced

A learner may also notice that Latin uses different endings to show the job of a word in the sentence. Here, -a shows the nominative singular form of this first-declension noun.

Because sententiam is accusative singular. It is the direct object of describere.

So the structure is:

• discipula = subject
• sententiam = the thing being rewritten / copied out
• describere = to rewrite / copy out
• cogitur = is forced

The accusative ending tells you that the sentence itself is what the student must rewrite.

The two forms have different grammatical roles:

• sententiam = accusative, object of describere
• sententia = nominative, subject of est

So Latin repeats the same noun in two different cases because it is doing two different jobs:

1. In the main clause, the student must rewrite the sentence
2. In the quia clause, the sentence is not yet complete

English often uses the same form for both roles, but Latin changes the ending.

Cogitur is:

• 3rd person singular
• present tense
• passive voice
• from cogere = to force, compel

So cogitur means he/she/it is forced or is compelled.

Because the subject is discipula, it means the female student is forced.

This is a very common Latin pattern:

• cogitur + infinitive = is forced to ...

So:

• describere = to rewrite / copy out
• cogitur describere = is forced to rewrite

The infinitive expresses the action that the subject is compelled to do.

This is similar to English is forced to write, except Latin uses the bare infinitive without a separate word meaning to in the same way English does.

Not usually in the modern English sense.

Although describere is the ancestor of English describe, in Latin it often means things like:

• copy out
• write out
• transcribe
• draw
• represent

In a sentence like this, describere sententiam usually means to write the sentence out again or to copy it again, not to describe the sentence.

This is a good example of a word that looks familiar but does not always mean exactly what its English descendant means.

Iterum means again.

It is an adverb, so it modifies the action describere:

• sententiam iterum describere = to rewrite the sentence again

Latin adverbs often have fairly flexible placement. Here iterum sits next to describere, which makes good sense because it clearly goes with the action of rewriting.

Quia means because, and it introduces a clause giving the reason.

So the sentence has this structure:

• Main clause: Discipula sententiam iterum describere cogitur
• Reason clause: quia sententia nondum integra est

The second clause explains why the student is forced to rewrite the sentence.

Non simply means not.

Nondum means not yet.

So:

• sententia non integra est = the sentence is not complete
• sententia nondum integra est = the sentence is not complete yet

The word nondum adds the idea that completion may happen later.

Because it agrees with sententia.

In Latin, adjectives must agree with the nouns they describe in:

• gender
• number
• case

Here:

• sententia is feminine singular nominative
• so integra is also feminine singular nominative

That agreement shows that integra describes sententia.

Integra literally means something like:

• untouched
• whole
• entire
• complete

In this context, the natural meaning is complete or whole.

So sententia nondum integra est means that the sentence is still missing something or has not yet been fully written correctly.

Latin word order is much freer than English word order because Latin endings show grammatical relationships.

So sententia nondum integra est can put est at the end quite naturally. In fact, placing the verb late in the clause is very common in Latin.

English usually needs a stricter order:

• the sentence is not yet complete

Latin can move words around more easily for style, emphasis, or rhythm.

Yes. Latin allows a lot of variation, as long as the forms stay clear.

For example, the same basic meaning could still be expressed with different arrangements, such as:

• Discipula iterum sententiam describere cogitur, quia sententia nondum integra est.
• Quia sententia nondum integra est, discipula sententiam iterum describere cogitur.

The version you have is perfectly natural. The endings, more than the order, tell you what each word is doing.