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Nominative and Accusative Cases:

Sentences are constructed around nouns and verbs. Nouns are the 'things', the subjects and objects of sentences, giving and receiving actions respectively, while verbs are their actions.

In Latin, the endings of nouns change based upon how the noun is used in the sentence.
A list of all the possible endings (called inflections) of a noun are called the declension of the noun, and all nouns fit into one of five declensions. The two most important cases are the nominative and the accusative, with each having five different ways of being expressed (one for each declension.)

In a Latin sentence, the subject, the noun which is 'doing' the verb, is voiced in the nominative case, while the direct object receiving the action is voiced in the accusative.

'Doers' are nominative; 'receivers' are accusative.

nominative case:    servus sedet........................................the slave is sitting
accusative case:     dominus servum salutat...............the master is greeting the slave

Often, the accusative (singular) will end in an -m.

Subject - Object - Verb is the typical word order for Latin sentences.

When using a linking verb (est, es, etc.), both nouns will be in the nominative case.