Definition & General Considerations

It is important to bear in mind, from the beginning and forevermore, the definition of a participle:

A participle is a verbal adjective.

It is difficult to overemphasize the centrality of this definition; bearing it in mind always will always help you construe participles correctly. Consider the implications of this definition. As a verb, a participle has tense (it may refer to present, past or future action) and voice (it may be active or passive); furthermore, it can do verby things, like govern a direct object, introduce a subordinate clause, etc. As an adjective, on the other hand, a participle modifies some noun or pronoun (though, like adjectives, it may even be used substantively), and as such a participle must decline so as to be able to agree with a noun or pronoun in any gender, number, and case. A participle is therefore really two parts of speech in one, and combines the features of both.

For this very reason, participles have rather a broader usage than regular adjectives. In particular, participles may be used either simply--all by themselves to modify some noun or pronoun--or in phrases. The latter are very, very common in Latin (and are, by the way, a good stylistic feature in English as well, provided they aren't left dangling or otherwise misplaced in the sentence). As an illustration of this vital distinction, look at the following sentences.

I noticed the drooping flowers.

I noticed the flowers drooping from lack of water.

In the first sentence, the participle "drooping" is used simply (all by itself) to modify the noun "flowers," and as such it is placed in the typical adjectival position immediately before the noun it modifies. In the second sentence, however, we have a participial phrase, consisting of the participle "drooping" connected to the prepositional phrase "from lack of water," which explains why the flowers are drooping. Please note that the participial phrase is used in the so-called "predicative" position, i.e. after the noun that it modifies. If you try to put the whole participial phrase in the same place as a simple participle ("I noticed the drooping from the lack of water flowers"), you get a really bad sentence.

Theoretically, a complete participial system would have six forms in it, as follows:

	ACTIVE	PASSIVE
PRESENT	I watched the soldiers shooting the prisoner.	I watched the prisoner being shot.
PERFECT	Having shot the prisoner, the soldiers were dismissed.	The prisoner, having been shot, dropped dead.
FUTURE	I watched the soldiers about to shoot the prisoner.	I pitied the prisoner about to be shot.

As we shall see, the Latin participial system is defective; only present active, perfect passive, and future active participles occur with any regularity (one could quibble about the future passive participle, but we shall not do so here).

Forms

The present active participle is formed from the present stem of the verb, to which the ending -ns is ended. For the consonant-stem 3rd declension, an e is added before the ending; in the 3rd -io and 4th conjugations, the vowels ie precede the ending. So this is what you get:

Conjugation	Present stem	Present active participle
1st: paro, parare	para-	parans
2nd: moneo, monere	mone-	monens
3rd: rego, regere	reg-	regens
3rd -io: capio, capere	cap-	capiens
4th: audio, audire	audi-	audiens

But we decided earlier that participles are adjectives, and that they therefore must decline. It is hugely important to learn and remember always that present active participles have third declension endings. Present active participles have only one gender-termination in the nominative singular and decline like the adjective ingentes, ingentia with one BIG exception, namely the ablative singular ends in -e (like 3rd declension nouns). The stem of present active participles is ALWAYS -nt- (use the English word "present" to remember this). If you don't care for the grammatical, descriptive jargon, and just want to start memorizing, here are the present participles for the five paradigmatic verbs:

	1st M/F	N	2nd M/F	N	3rd M/N	N
Singular
Nom.	parans	parans	monens	monens	regens	regens
Gen.	parantis	parantis	monentis	monentis	regentis	regentis
Dat.	paranti	paranti	monenti	monenti	regenti	regenti
Acc.	parantem	parans	monentem	monens	regentem	regens
Abl.	parante	parante	monente	monente	regente	regente
Plural
Nom.	parantes	parantia	monentes	monentia	regentes	regentia
Gen.	parantium	parantium	monentium	monentium	regentium	regentium
Dat.	parantibus	parantibus	monentibus	monentibus	regentibus	regentibus
Acc.	parantes	parantia	monentes	monentia	regentes	regentia
Abl.	parantibus	parantibus	monentibus	monentibus	regentibus	regentibus

	3rd -io M/F	N	4th M/F	N
Singular
Nom.	capiens	capiens	audiens	audiens
Gen.	capientis	capientis	audientis	audientis
Dat.	capienti	capienti	audienti	audienti
Acc.	capientem	capiens	audientem	audiens
Abl.	capiente	capiente	audiente	audiente
Plural
Nom.	capientes	capientia	audientes	audientia
Gen.	capientium	capientium	audientium	audientium
Dat.	capientibus	capientibus	audientibus	audientibus
Acc.	capientes	capientia	audientes	audientia
Abl.	capientibus	capientibus	audientibus	audientibus

Translation

This is wonderfully straightforward. The present active participle is ALWAYS translated as "-ing"; for example, the paradigms above mean "preparing," "warning," "ruling," "capturing," and "listening," respectively, regardless of gender, number, or case (unless used as a substantive). The real issue, as suggested above, is whether to translate the participle in its "attributive" position (i.e. in front of the noun it modifies) or its "predicative" position (after the noun it modifies). Your ear for English must be the guide in this instance, but as a general rule participial phrases will be predicative.