Breakdown of Qui libros legunt, facilius discunt.
legere
to read
liber
the book
discere
to learn
facilius
more easily
Questions & Answers about Qui libros legunt, facilius discunt.
What is qui doing at the beginning of the sentence?
Qui is a relative pronoun. Here it means who or, more naturally in English, those who.
In this sentence, qui libros legunt means those who read books. That whole part acts like the subject of discunt.
So the structure is:
- qui libros legunt = those who read books
- facilius discunt = learn more easily
Is there a missing noun after qui?
Not exactly, but Latin often leaves the noun understood.
So qui by itself can mean:
- those who
- the ones who
- people who
Latin does this very naturally. English sometimes needs to add a word like those or people, but Latin does not.
Why is qui plural?
Because it refers to more than one person, and the verbs show that too:
- legunt = they read
- discunt = they learn
Since the people are plural, the relative pronoun is plural as well:
- singular: qui would not work here
- plural: qui =