News | About the club | About the project | About Esperanto | Esperanto lessons | Links

Short course of Esperanto

Rule Nr.1. The word la is the only article in Esperanto, the same to all genders, cases and numbers.

Rule Nr.2. Singular noun ends with an inflexion -o: tago 'a day', plural - with -j: tagoj 'days'; singular and plural accusative ends with -n: tagon, tagojn '(He spent)a day, (He spent) days'.

Rule Nr.3. Adjective always ends with -a; gender does not exist, eg., bela tago 'beautiful day' - bela nomo 'beautiful house'; plural ends with -j, accusative ends with -n: belaj domoj 'beautiful houses', belajn domojn '(He builds) beautiful houses'; the comparative degree is constructed by adding the word pli 'more', the superlative degree is constructed by adding plej 'mostly'; together with the comparative degree the preposition ol 'than' is used for comparance, eg., pli blanka ol negxo 'whiter than the snow', mi havas la plej bonan instruiston 'I have the best teacher'.

Rule Nr.4. Cardinal numerals are not inflexioned: unu 'one', du 'two', tri 'three', kvar 'four', cent 'one hundred', mil 'one thousand' ; tens and hundreds are made by addind up numerals one to another: 21 - dudek unu, 533 - kvin cent tridek tri; ordinal numerals end with the adjective's inflexional -a: unua, kvara 'the first, the fourth'; collective numerals end with the suffix -op: duopo 'a two'; fractions are formed by adding the suffix -on: kvarono 'a quarter'; numeral nouns end with -o: unuo 'a one', cento 'a hundred'; numeral adverbs end with -e: du+e=due 'on the other hand'.

Rule Nr.5. Personal pronouns in Esperanto are: mi 'me', vi 'you (sg. and pl.)', li 'he', sxi 'she', gxi 'it', si 'oneself', ni 'we', ili 'they', oni - impersonal pronoun. Possessive pronouns end with adjective's inflexional. pronouns are declined the same as adjectives, eg., mia 'my', mian 'mine', min 'me', etc.

Rule Nr.6. Verbs are not inflexioned, eg., mi legas 'I read\ I am reading', la onklo legas 'Uncle reads\Uncle is reading'; a verb of the Present Tense ends with -as, the Past Tense with -is, li legis 'he read', the Future Tense with -os: ili legos 'they will read', the Imperative Mood ends with -u: legu 'read, please', the Subjunctive Mood ends with -us: sxi legus 'she might read', the Infinitive has an ending -i: legi 'to read'. Participles, Verbal Adverbs and Half - Participles are formed as follows: the Present Tense of the Active Voice has a suffix -ant-: leganta, legante; the Past Tense has a suffix -int-: leginta; the Future Tense has a suffix -ont-: legonta; the Passive Participles in the Present Tense have a suffix -at-: legata, in the Past Tense - -it-: legita, in the Future Tense - -ot-; legota. All the passive verbal forms are formed out of the particular verb form in Esperanto esti (to be), adding it to the Passive Participle, eg., sxi estas amata 'she is loved (by someone)'.

Rule Nr.7. Adverbs have an ending -e, eg., bone 'all right, OK'. Adverbs are declined same as adjectives, eg., mia frato pli bone kantas 'My brother sings better'.

Rule Nr.8. All prepositions are in demand of the nominative case: Sur la tablo 'on the table', sub la lito 'under the bed'. Some prepositions indicate the place of the thing and the direction leading to it: la libro estas sur la tablo (the nominative case) 'the book is on the table', mi metas la libron sur la tablon (the direction, the accusative case) 'I am laying the book on the table'.

Rule Nr.9. All the words are pronounced the same as written.

Rule Nr.10. The last but one syllable is always stressed.

Rule Nr.11. The compound words are formed by throwing off the ending of the first word and simply joining the words.

Rule Nr.12. Only one negative can be found in a negative sentence: Mi ne kantis 'I did not sing', mi neniam bone kantis 'I have never sing good.'

Rule Nr.13. Words indicating the direction of an action have the ending of the accusative case: Kie vi estas? 'Where are you?', Kien vi iras? 'Where are you going?'. Mi estas en Londono 'I am in London', but Mi iras Londonon 'I am going to London'.

Rule Nr.14. Every preposition has a concrete meaning. When it is not clear what preposition to use due to the complicated meaning of the sentence, the abstract je is used: Ridi je tio 'to laugh of it', sopiro je la patrujo ' a longing for the motherland'.

Rule Nr.15. The international words have the particular ending and spelling in Esperanto: teatro 'a theatre', miliono 'a million'.

Rule Nr.16. Nouns and articles can sometimes decline the vowel letter of the ending (esp. in poetry). In such cases the apostrophe is used: De l'mond' = de la mondo '...of the world, belonging to the world.

These rules are the cornerstone of L. Zamenhof 's international language, however they do not demonstrate it exhaustively. Same as all the other languages, Esperanto has its own nuances.