Discipula exercitium breve ante cenam perficit.

Because discipula is in the nominative singular, the case typically used for the subject of a sentence.

• discipula = student / schoolgirl
• nominative singular ending: -a

So discipula is the one doing the action of perficit.

Although exercitium can be either nominative singular or accusative singular in form, here it is understood as the direct object, not the subject.

Why?

• The verb perficit means completes / finishes
• Someone completes something
• discipula is the doer
• exercitium is the thing being completed

Since exercitium is a neuter second-declension noun, its nominative and accusative singular look the same: exercitium.

So here it is accusative singular: the exercise as the direct object.

Because breve agrees with exercitium.

The adjective comes from brevis, breve, meaning short. It must match the noun it describes in:

• gender
• number
• case

Here:

• exercitium is neuter
• singular
• accusative

So the adjective must also be neuter singular accusative, which is breve.

That is why Latin says:

• exercitium breve = a short exercise / the short exercise

not brevis, which would be masculine/feminine nominative singular.

Perficit is the verb, and it means completes, finishes, or carries through to completion.

It comes from perficere.

Its form tells you:

• present tense = is completing / completes
• third person singular = he/she/it
• active voice
• indicative mood

So discipula exercitium breve perficit means the student completes the short exercise.

Because ante is a preposition that takes the accusative case.

So:

• ante cenam = before dinner

Here:

• cena = dinner
• cenam = accusative singular

This is normal Latin preposition usage. Many prepositions require a specific case, and ante regularly takes the accusative.

It literally means before dinner, but Latin does not have articles like the or a/an.

So cenam could be understood in English as:

• before dinner
• before the dinner
• sometimes even before a dinner

In most contexts, natural English just says before dinner.

The same applies to discipula and exercitium: Latin leaves it to context whether English should use a or the.

Latin word order is more flexible than English word order because the endings show each word’s role.

This sentence is:

• Discipula = subject
• exercitium breve = object
• ante cenam = time expression
• perficit = verb

A very ordinary Latin order is to place the verb at or near the end, which is what happens here.

You could rearrange the words and still keep basically the same meaning, for example:

• Discipula ante cenam exercitium breve perficit
• Exercitium breve discipula ante cenam perficit

But the original order is a clear, natural way to say it.

Yes, discipula is the feminine form and normally means female student or schoolgirl.

The masculine form is:

• discipulus = male student / schoolboy

So if the subject were male, the sentence would begin:

• Discipulus ...

This is a vocabulary point, not just a grammatical accident: discipula is specifically feminine.

They belong to different declensions:

• discipula = first declension, feminine
• exercitium = second declension, neuter
• cena = first declension, feminine

That helps explain the endings:

• discipula = nominative singular
• exercitium = accusative singular (same form as nominative because it is neuter)
• cenam = accusative singular after ante

Recognizing declensions is very useful, because it lets you identify case and function more easily.

Yes. The Latin present tense can often be translated in more than one natural way in English, depending on context:

• completes
• is completing
• sometimes even does complete

In a simple beginner sentence like this, completes is usually the most straightforward translation, but is completing is not wrong if the context suggests an ongoing action.

Because Latin verb endings already contain a lot of information.

In perficit, the ending tells you that the subject is:

• third person
• singular
• present
• active

English often needs extra words like does, is, or pronouns like she to make these meanings explicit. Latin often builds that information into the verb ending itself.

So perficit already means something like:

• she completes
• he completes
• it completes

Then the noun discipula tells you that the subject is she, a female student.