Puella apud aviam lacrimat, sed avia eam blande consolatur.

Because apud takes the accusative case.

So:

• avia = grandmother, nominative
• aviam = grandmother, accusative

After apud, Latin uses the accusative to mean at the house of / with / near someone:

• apud aviam = with her grandmother or at her grandmother’s place

This is a fixed grammatical pattern you simply learn with the preposition.

Here apud means something like:

• with
• at the home of
• in the company of
• sometimes near

So Puella apud aviam lacrimat means the girl is crying with her grandmother or at her grandmother’s place, not that the grandmother is the object of the crying.

This is different from English, where with can mean many things. In Latin, apud often gives the idea of being in someone’s presence or at someone’s home.

Because they are doing different jobs in the sentence.

• puella is the subject of lacrimat, so it is nominative.
• aviam comes after apud, and apud requires the accusative.

So:

• Puella = the girl is the one crying
• apud aviam = with the grandmother / at the grandmother’s place

Even though both words refer to people, their endings differ because their grammatical roles differ.

In the second clause, avia is the subject:

• sed avia eam blande consolatur
• but the grandmother gently comforts her

Since avia is doing the action, it is in the nominative case.

Compare the two forms:

• aviam = accusative, after apud
• avia = nominative, subject of consolatur

This is a good example of how Latin endings show function in the sentence.

eam is the direct object of consolatur.

It means her, referring back to puella.

So:

• avia = the grandmother
• eam = her (the girl)

Because eam is the object, it is in the accusative case.

This is the feminine singular accusative form of is, ea, id:

• nominative feminine singular: ea = she
• accusative feminine singular: eam = her

Because ea would be the subject form, meaning she.

But here the word means her, the person receiving the comforting, so Latin uses the accusative:

• ea = she
• eam = her

In avia eam blande consolatur, the grandmother is doing the action, and the girl is receiving it. So eam is correct.

consolatur is a deponent verb.

That means it looks passive in form, but has an active meaning.

So although consolatur looks like a passive form, it means:

• she comforts
• not she is comforted

Its dictionary form is:

• consolor, consolari, consolatus sum = to comfort

This is very common in Latin, and learners often need time to get used to it. Deponent verbs use passive-looking endings but are translated actively.

Because it is deponent.

Normally, -tur is a passive ending, as in:

• amat = he/she loves
• amatur = he/she is loved

But with deponent verbs, the passive-looking ending has an active meaning:

• consolatur = he/she comforts

So you should not translate it as passive just because of the ending. The verb’s dictionary entry tells you whether it is deponent.

blande is an adverb.

It describes how the grandmother comforts the girl:

• blande = gently, kindly, soothingly

It comes from the adjective blandus, blanda, blandum, meaning charming, pleasant, or gentle.

A common pattern in Latin is:

• adjective: blandus
• adverb: blande

So eam blande consolatur means she gently comforts her.

Latin has much freer word order than English because the endings show each word’s role.

English depends heavily on word order:

• The grandmother comforts her is different from Her comforts the grandmother, which is ungrammatical.

Latin can move words around more easily because forms like avia and eam already show who is doing what.

So:

• avia eam blande consolatur
• avia blande eam consolatur
• eam avia blande consolatur

all could mean basically the same thing, though the emphasis may shift.

The given word order is natural and clear, but it is not the only possible one.

sed means but, and it connects the two clauses:

• Puella apud aviam lacrimat
• sed avia eam blande consolatur

Latin conjunctions like sed often stand at the beginning of the second clause, just as but does in English.

So the sentence structure is:

• first idea: the girl is crying
• contrasting second idea: but the grandmother comforts her

Both are present tense.

• lacrimat = she is crying / she cries
• consolatur = she comforts / she is comforting

In simple narrative Latin, the present tense can often be translated in natural English either as:

• simple present: cries, comforts
• progressive present: is crying, is comforting

The context determines which sounds best in English.

The basic dictionary form is lacrimo, lacrimare, meaning to cry or to weep.

lacrimat is:

• 3rd person singular
• present tense
• active voice

So it means:

• he/she cries
• here, specifically, the girl cries

Sometimes Latin can leave out an object pronoun if the meaning is obvious, but here eam is useful because it makes the sentence very clear:

• the grandmother comforts her

Without eam, avia blande consolatur would usually mean:

• the grandmother comforts or possibly the grandmother consoles herself, depending on context and interpretation

So eam clearly marks that the grandmother is comforting the girl.

Latin often repeats nouns where English might prefer a pronoun.

English might say:

• The girl is crying at her grandmother’s house, but she gently comforts her

But in English, she could be ambiguous. Latin avoids that here by repeating avia, which makes the subject of the second clause very clear.

So sed avia eam blande consolatur is neat and unambiguous:

• the grandmother is the one comforting
• her refers to the girl

Not exactly.

• cum avia usually means with the grandmother in the sense of together with
• apud aviam often means at the grandmother’s place or in the grandmother’s presence

Sometimes the English translation may look similar, but the Latin nuance is different.

So in this sentence, apud aviam suggests location or presence more than companionship alone.