Discipula imperita verba pauca intellegit, sed audire tamen non desinit.

Discipula is the subject of the sentence, so it is in the nominative singular. It means female student / girl pupil.

Its ending -a shows that it is:

• singular
• feminine
• nominative here

Since Latin uses case endings, you know discipula is the one doing the actions intellegit and non desinit.

Because imperita is an adjective describing discipula, it must agree with it in:

• gender
• number
• case

So:

• discipula = feminine, singular, nominative
• imperita = feminine, singular, nominative

This is normal adjective agreement in Latin.
So discipula imperita means an unskilled/inexperienced/ignorant student.

Imperita comes from imperitus, -a, -um, meaning things like:

• inexperienced
• unskilled
• ignorant
• not well trained

In this sentence it describes the student as someone who is not yet very capable, especially in understanding what she hears.

They are the direct object of intellegit.

The verb intellegit means understands, and the thing understood is verba pauca.

So:

• verba = accusative plural of verbum
• pauca = accusative neuter plural agreeing with verba

Because verbum is neuter, its plural nominative and accusative are both verba.
Here the meaning shows it is accusative: she understands a few words.

Both are possible in Latin.

Because Latin relies on endings more than word order, the adjective can come before or after the noun:

• verba pauca
• pauca verba

Both mean a few words.

The order in the sentence may simply reflect style or emphasis. Latin word order is flexible, though not random.

Because the subject discipula is singular.

Intellegit is:

• 3rd person
• singular
• present tense
• active indicative

So it means she understands or the student understands.

If the subject were plural, you would expect intellegunt instead.

Because it depends on desinit.

The verb desino often means stop or cease, and it commonly takes an infinitive to express what someone stops doing.

So:

• audire = to hear / to listen
• non desinit audire = she does not stop listening

This is similar to English she does not stop listening, where listening depends on stop.

Because non negates the verb.

• desinit = she stops
• non desinit = she does not stop

So the sentence contrasts two ideas:

• she understands only a little
• but she still keeps listening

Tamen means nevertheless, still, or however.

It adds the idea of contrast:

• she understands only a few words,
• yet/still she does not stop listening.

So tamen strengthens the contrast already introduced by sed.

Latin often uses both together for emphasis.

• sed = but
• tamen = nevertheless / still

Together they create a stronger contrast:

• but still
• but nevertheless

English can do the same:

• She understands only a few words, but she still does not stop listening.

So this is perfectly natural Latin, not redundant in a bad way.

Literally, audio often means hear, but in context it can also be understood as listen.

Here, because of non desinit, the sense is more naturally:

• she does not stop listening

So although the basic dictionary meaning is hear, the overall idea is ongoing attention.

Latin has no articles like English a/an/the.

So discipula can mean:

• a student
• the student

and verba pauca can mean:

• a few words
• the few words, depending on context

You determine this from the context, not from a separate word.

Yes. Even though Latin word order is flexible, this sentence is arranged in a very natural and meaningful way:

• Discipula imperita: the subject first
• verba pauca intellegit: what she understands
• sed audire tamen non desinit: the contrasting idea comes after sed

Also, placing non desinit toward the end gives emphasis to the fact that she keeps going despite difficulty.

So the word order is not arbitrary; it helps highlight the contrast:

• limited understanding
• continued effort