mea sententia

This is such a handy little expression, I thought I'd highlight it in this post. mea sententia - it is in the ablative case, so both final a's are long - means in my opinion (IMHO). If you are speaking Latin and you don't want it to sound like everything you say is a declaration of truth, then mea sententia is a godsend. Moreover, it doesn't even muck up the grammar, by beginning an indirect statement or anything of that sort. Go ahead - use it!

Marcus is holding such instruments because he is a painter. Marcellus, in my opinion, is an excellent painter.

Indirect Questions

One of the things I like about having a narrator, is that she can ask questions of the reader, or make assumptions about the things that they might like to know. This allows for quite a few indirect questions, such as the one below. First, lets begin with a translation. There are two words here that I needed to look up. peniculus - paintbrush - wasn't hard to find. I found discus pigmentarius - palette - in a Latin/German dictionary of modern vocabulary.

The page reads; Firstly, perhaps you are asking why Marcellus is holding a paintbrush and palette.

If this was a direct question - Why is Marcus holding... - the Latin would be cur Marcus tenet? But when that question is imbedded into a longer sentence as an indirect question, the verb changes ever so slightly - quaeris cur Marcellus teneat. 

Marcellus

Say hello to Marcellus. He is the first citizen of Legonium whom we meet. Like our narrator, he is a ready made minifigure from the Lego collectable series. He appeared way back in Series 4. I bought a copy off eBay after I'd built the restaurant which you'll see in this story. The little attic room at the top came with artist's equipment, so I thought he would make the perfect occupant. I just hope he gets to stay there!

For those of you who want a translation, here it is; My first story is about this man. This man is Marcellus. If you wish, I will tell you (the) story about Marcellus now.

narrator

Here is our narrator. She will be telling the stories in the Legonium series (although I think we may get a guest narrator from time to time). I've had some requests for a translation from a couple of Twitter users, so here goes. Hello reader. I hope that you are well. I am the narrator. I know many stories about many people. Do you like to hear stories? This more literally means, Is it pleasing to you to hear stories? I am able to tell stories to you. 

This minifigure photo comes straight from Lego. She was a collectable in Series 10. I don't own a copy of the actual figure, but it wasn't hard to find a photo online. Her book had an English title, so I covered it with a green rectangle. My photo-shop skills know no bounds...

Legonium

salve lector. Welcome to Legonium. Legonium is an imaginary town based on the Modular Buildings of the Lego Group. I own three of these sets and hope to buy two more in the near future to expand the town. 

I based the name of the town, Legonium, on the real-world ancient city, Londinium, now of course known as London.

The first part (pars prima) of the story is called Marcellus. Marcellus is a citizen of the town whom you will meet shortly.