It’s a common feeling when we find out about Esperanto to be pretty excited. For me, I’d known since fifth grade that Esperanto exists, but I didn’t know it was a thing you could actually learn  – and speak with real people – till much later. For me, it was the year I turned 30. (Wow, that’s old!) When we start learning Esperanto it feels different from learning a national language. In many ways it is different. Thanks to the various methods of word building, the lack of irregular verbs and tenses, and the reduced number of idomatic expressions, many people report more success with Esperanto than with other languages. It’s only natural to want to start putting some of this into practice. There’s kind of a pioneer spirit.

Esperanto Wasn’t Born Yesterday

It’s easy to think (whether explicitly or implicitly) that Esperanto is somehow “new”. That we can and should stand in the gap. Invent all sorts of vocabulary, and write all sorts of works of literature as we’re learning, but let’s remember: Esperanto was published in 1887. It hasn’t been sitting on a dusty shelf waiting for us to discover it in 2018. It has over a 130 year history of constant use. Indeed, it’s this history and community of speakers that makes Esperanto worth learning, compared to any of the other possible unused language projects which have been proposed over the years.

La Esperanto-Kvadrato

When considering how to say something in Esperanto, there are a few factors that come into play. Esperanto does have it’s own internal logic, but Esperanto is not a just a “logical language” (as I often hear said.) It is the living language of an active speech community. There is also the Fundamento to consider (a document of model texts designed to take the place of the centuries of literature that other languages have.) Finally, language is not math, and practicality is often as important as logic.

Lee Miller’s “EsperantoKvadrato” – used with permission.

It’s great – essential, actually – to have a community of people to speak with. Part of the process of learning any language is to learn how people learn that language, how things are said, what the established terms for things are.  We don’t just make things up. Having these common expressions means we can have a common understanding. When we go our own way unnecessarily, that breaks that common understanding.

So never create words then?

On the contrary. There are many times when this will be necessary. Sometimes we have an urgent communication need so we do our best to express an idea with the tools that we have. (This is true no matter which language we are learning.) Other times, there really is no established term for something. (This is not as frequent as many new speakers think, however.)  It’s not my goal to explain all the right principles of word formation in Esperanto (but watch Esperanto Variety Show for that topic), do a little checking around, and – most importantly – ask for feedback from experienced speakers. They can help you understand what is and isn’t clear in what you’re trying to say, and may have additional suggestions.

       

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• Dankon kaj gratulon mi sendas… — Jim by E. J. Lieberman

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One thing which we all learn (hopefully) early on in our pursuit of Esperanto is that there’s no such thing as an “easy language.” While Esperanto speakers often report a higher level of success with Esperanto compared to other languages they’ve learned (or tried to learn), Esperanto is not without challenges. Top on that list are the accusative ending (-n), transitivity of verbs, and the “dreaded Table of Correlatives.”

This month’s topic, suggested by Sandio, focuses on one small aspect of the Correlatives. Sandio was a student at NASK this summer who helped me see this question in a new light.

Why is Kio always singular?

Why is “Kio” never plural? Photo courtesy Esperanto Variety Show

When I teach the correlatives, I usually start with the questions, but it applies equally well to the answers. Why are kio (what), tio (that), io (something), ĉio (everything), and nenio (nothing) always singular? Many of the correlatives are unchanging (kiel, nenies, and iam, for example) but the following question words can take grammatical endings like -j and -n. (Again, this applies to the answers too.)

• kia -j, -n
• kie -n
• kio -n
• kiu -j, -n

Note that these happen to be the correlatives that end in vowels. It’s easy enough to see why kie can’t be plural (it’s like an adverb) and if you understand the motion rule explained in Keys to understanding Esperanto prepositions, the same rule applies to adverbs, hence the -n. If you take kie off the list, it might seem surprising that kio, which asks about nouns, can’t be plural like nouns can be. This contrasts with  kiu and kia.

Sandio wanted to know why.

My usual answer is that kio is asking about something unknown. If it’s unknown, how can you know whether it’s plural or singular? Therefore, in Esperanto, we treat it as singular. At this point, a learner might say something like “What if I hold up a bowl of lumpy objects and ask ‘what are these?’ – that certainly sounds plural to me, even if I don’t know what they are.”

At that point, I usually punt. “The reason it can’t be plural is … just ‘cos.”

This wasn’t good enough for Sandio, who pressed the question. I did my best and moved on for the day onto other topics.

Inspiration hit the next day

As I mention briefly in this video, it struck me that we really do the same thing in English. When we don’t say “these” (which is really short for “these things” (tiuj aferoj)), “what” is basically always singular in English. Plural, in English, is reflected in the verb.

If I were to hold up a bowl of lumpy objects and ask about the contents of the bowl, I would ask:

• What is in the bowl?

The same thing applies no matter what we’re talking about. I could ask “what is on the table?” and even if I was expecting a list of seven items (that is, even if I knew the answer was plural), I would never ask “what are on the table?”. As soon as we specify “what things are on the table”, we’re no longer talking about kio. (That would have to be kiuj aferoj estas sur la tablo?)

When we specify “these (things)”, we do use a plural verb in English:

• Kio estas tiuj (aferoj)?
• What are these (things)?

… that’s because “these things” is the subject. (These things are what?) It’s the same in Esperanto.

And it applies to “the answers.”

One thing I didn’t mention in the class at NASK is that not only applies equally well to the answers, but might be easier to see if we look at the answers first.

• tio (that)
• io (something)
• ĉio (everything)
• nenio (nothing)

We never say “that are”, or “something are”,  or “everything are” or “nothing are” – so why would we try to make tio, io, ĉio, and nenio plural? The same thing applies to kio.

We learn by teaching

Someone asked me at the end of NASK what I learned while teaching. In the moment I couldn’t think of anything. (While NASK is an awesome experience, in many ways teaching there is just an extension of what I do every day all year long.) I wish I’d thought of this topic – because this certainly counts. Thanks, Sandio, for pressing your question and for suggesting that I write a blog post about it.

       

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As I write this, I’m just back from two weeks of teaching at the North American Summer Esperanto Institute (In Esperanto: NASK – short for Nord-Amerika Somera Kursaro). On the last day, I told my students that if they only remember two things from our time together, let it be these two. I thought I would pass the same advice on to you.

Common verb patterns: N with havas; no N with estas

image courtesy of Esperanto Variety Show

Esperanto is an “easy language” but no language is truly easy. Top on many learner’s lists of troublesome details is the accusative -n ending, used primarily to indicate the direct object – the thing that is “receiving the action” of the verb. When we’re starting out, I like to teach these as verb patterns, as in the image above.

• __ estas __ .
• __ havas __-n.

With words like havas (have), we need to put an -n on the end of the word in the second blank. If there are adjectives in the second blank, they need -n too.

• Mi havas amikon – I have a friend.
• La instruisto havas bonajn lernantojn – The teacher has good students.
• Arbo havas foliojn – A tree has leaves.
• Birdo havas bekon – A bird has a beak.

With words like estas (is, are), the pattern is simply to plug the words into the blanks. No -n required.

• Li estas amiko – He is a friend.
• Ili estas bonaj lernantoj – They are good students.
• La arbo estas alta – The tree is tall.
• Tio estas granda birdo. – That is a big bird.

One thing to watch out for is that once you get used to the pattern with havas (add the -n), that you don’t get so into it that you start adding -n in the pattern with estas (no -n with estas!)

There is a third pattern for single-actor verbs like kuras (run). You don’t run something. You just run (Mi kuras – I run). Most verbs are like kuras or havas. There aren’t a lot of verbs like estas, but we could include fariĝas (become) in that category.

Common verbs that follow the same pattern as havas are vidas (see),  manĝas (eat), amas (love), and lernas (learn).

Esperanto has five vowels

image courtesy of Esperanto Variety Show

This sounds obvious when you say it, but I find many intermediate speakers who haven’t learned how to put this into practice. We spent a fair amount of time in the beginner class working on this. If you can develop these habits early, you will be ahead of the game in terms of having a good Esperanto accent as well as simply making it easy for people to understand you.

As mentioned in a previous blog post, this is especially important to practice at ends of words since –as and –is tell us when something happens. The important thing is to pronounce these vowels the same way whether they’re in the beginning, middle, or end of a word.

Rather than trying to describe the sounds using text here, please see this video in which I demonstrate the five vowels.

But what did YOU learn, Tomaso?

For me personally, teaching at NASK was a great experience. On the last day, a student from the advance class said that he’d heard that people learn a lot by teaching and he wanted to know what I’d learned. I began to answer in terms of what I’d learned about teaching methods, class dynamics, some things I might do differently next time … but he clarified. “What did you learn about Esperanto?”. Although this was my first experience teaching Esperanto to such a large class (15 people), and my first experience teaching on a daily basis, I have been teaching Esperanto for a long time – 20 years for several hours per week. I learned a lot about teaching an in-person class, but what did I learn about Esperanto?

Eventually I thought of something. I learned that loĝio not only means “box seat”, but it can also mean Masonic lodge. Dear Esperanto learners. If you forget one thing from your basic Esperanto class, let it be that.

In other news

The online Esperanto newsletter Libera Folio has written an article about this blog:

baldau-dek-jaroj-da-angla-blogado-pri-esperanto

For information about NASK, watch nask.esperanto-usa.org which is where announcements about 2019 and future years will be posted.

       

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Where are you from? Gulls image from pixabay.com

De vs El — different kinds of “from” in Esperanto

Prepositions are very much the heart of a language. To master a language, it is essential to know both how to use them and which one to use when. This is true of Esperanto as well. I’ve written about prepositions here before: Keys to understanding Esperanto pepositions, Je the “wildcard” preposition, How to say a glass of water. This last one touched on confusion between de and da… but what about de and el?

If you look up “from” in a bilingual dictionary, you’ll see both de and el. So, which one do you use? The confusion doesn’t seem to be limited to native English speakers, but there are differences.

De – attachment or belonging

First, let’s recap what we learned about de in our discussion about glass of water.

It can show attachment or belonging.

• La ideo de Karlo – Karlo’s idea
• La pinto de la monto – the peak of the mountain
• La prezo de pano – the price of bread

It can also show who did something.

• Libro legata de Panjo – a book read by Mom.
• Ronkado de Avo – Grandpa’s snoring. (It belongs to him / He’s doing it.)

It can also show a starting place or time (“from” in contrast to “to”).

• Li kuris de la banko al la superbazaro – He ran from the bank to the supermarket.
• Mi restis sendorma de noktomezo ĝis tagiĝo – I was up from midnight till dawn.

El – out of, made out of, out from inside of

The basic meaning of “el”, in contrast is “out of” — that is, starting inside something and moving out.

• Mi venas el Hispanujo – I am from Spain.
• forpeli iun el la domo — to drive someone out of the house.
• ne gutas mielo el la ĉielo – honey doesn’t drip from the sky (money doesn’t grow on trees)

It can also mean “out of” in the sense of “made out of.”

• kruro el ligno – a wooden leg (a leg made out of wood.)

There are many examples where you could use either. Sometimes the meaning is subtly different. Sometimes there isn’t a great difference.

• flago pendas de/el la fenestro – a flag is hanging (from)/(out of) the window
• trinki el glaso – to drink from a glass
• trinki de apuda fontano – to drink from a nearby fountain.
• De kiu lando vi estas? What country are you from?
• El kiu lando vi estas? What country are you from?

In these cases, there may be a right answer (I’m not telling!) but you’ll see both and it’s not really a big deal.

Where are you from?

I’ve run this question by several fluent speakers and have received various answers. I’ve always seen this as a question of attachment. (“What country do you belong to?”) Others see it as coming “out of” a place. (You started out inside your country of origin.) Others still say it doesn’t make a big difference and in conversation they probably wouldn’t notice which preposition was used. I’m starting to agree with this third group. My sense is that de is more logical here but el is more traditional (and certainly makes logical sense to the people who use or have used it.) You’ll see it both ways so don’t stress about that.

• Where are you from? De/El kie vi estas?

Are you one of us?

In other cases, it’s more clear which answer is correct, even if we’re tempted to use the wrong one.

• du el la plej bonaj ideoj – two of the best ideas
• ŝi kantas plej bone el ĉiuj – she sang the best (out) of all of them.

It’s tempting to say “de” here (of) but “el” is the right choice. You’re selecting “out of” the list. They’re in the list and you’re pulling them out to talk about.

What do you think?

Thanks so much for reading and please comment to let me know what you think. Which prepositions cause you trouble?

       

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All languages need a way to describe things. Is it big, small, fast, good, bad? These words are called adjectives. In Esperanto, adjectives end in –a. If you want to describe something in Esperanto, look for a word that ends in -a:

• granda – big
• malgranda – small
• rapida – fast
• bona – good
• malbona – bad

An easy way to use an adjective is just to put it in front of a noun.

• granda hundo – a big dog.

It can also go after a noun.

• hundo granda – a big dog.

If there’s more than one dog, then we need a -j on both the adjective and the noun to show this.

• grandaj hundoj, hundoj grandaj – big dogs.

We can also use adjectives a little further from the noun, using estas (is/are). Note that we still need the -j ending to show plural, if the thing we’re describing is plural (more than one).

• La hundo estas granda. – The dog is big.
• La hundoj estas grandaj. – The dogs are big.

Finally, adjectives are also “marked for case”. That is, if there’s an -n on the noun, there needs to be one on the adjective too.

• Mi vidas grandan hundon. – I see a big dog.
• Mia koramiko ne ŝatas grandajn hundojn.

What about turning adjectives into verbs?

The above method – that is, with adjectives, is the best way to describe things, but I see a lot of questions about turning adjectives into verbs. This is a misunderstanding of how Esperanto works. If you want to say something like “the lake is blue”, you need an adjective: La lago estas blua. This is the correct and normal way to describe the lake.

Kiel bluas la lago! Image from Pixabay.com

Esperanto does allow us to make verbs out of any kind of root. The resulting verb means to do the action associated with the root. What action is associated with the root? With some words, like martelo (hammer) it’s easy. We can form the verb marteli (to hammer). With other roots, such as blua, however, the meaning “to do the action associated with blue” isn’t so clear.

“Aha”, says the random learner on the internet who heard differently somewhere else, but Claude Piron listed this very sentence in “The Evolution of Esperanto” to describe a blue lake. He said “Kiel bluas la lago.” Isn’t this an example of someone using a verb to describe?

Well, yes, but only sort of. It’s meant to be a nuanced, poetic way of saying something similar to “how blue the lake is”. We’re still talking about an action. In fact, notice how Piron translated the sentence.

•  Kiel bluas la lago! ‘what an impression of lively blue does the lake give out!’

It’s well-established in Esperanto that the adding a verb ending to an adjective means something more “active” than just “estas” plus an adjective. This can be clearly seen in words rapida/rapidi (fast, to hurry) and kuraĝa/kuraĝi (brave, to show bravery.) When it’s a verb, it’s more active.

My advice to learners is that if you want to say that the X is Y, always use estas: La X estas Y-a. Don’t try to turn Y into an action. It takes time to start getting a sense of what “action” is associated with a root.

Really never?

Okay, there is indeed a short list of common verbs that are often translated as “is + adjective” in English. (Note: it is my intention to add to this list as examples come up, so this should eventually be more or less comprehensive.)

• Vi pravas. You are right.
• Mi feliĉas aŭdi tion. I am happy to hear that.
• Mi tre malsatas. I am very hungry.
• Li malsanis dum tri tagoj. He was sick for three days.
• Ne gravas! No big deal! (Literally “not important”.)

Beyond this short list, really, never. Use adjective to describe things, and verbs to express actions.

       

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Tomaso kaj Logano diskutas la vokalojn

When expressing ideas in a new language, you’re going to want to be able to indicate when something happened. This is called “tense.” Esperanto has three tenses – present, past, and future. This sounds pretty simple, but there are a few pitfalls to avoid. If you’re just starting out with Esperanto, this blog post will have some basic information for you, and if you’re approaching intermediate level, you may find some useful tips as well.

Present tense -as (now)

The present tense is used to indicate events that are happening now, or that happen on a regular basis.

• Mi kantas. I am singing (now) or I sing (regular basis.)

Past tense -is

The past tense is used to talk about an event which happened in the past and has been completed or has stopped.

• Mi kantis hodiaŭ matene . I was singing this morning.
• Mi kantis kiam mi estis juna. I used to sing when I was young.

Future tense -os

The future tense expresses the idea that something isn’t happening now but will happen in the future.

• Mi kantos morgaŭ vespere. I will be singing tomorrow evening.

Pronunciation matters

The tense system above sounds simple enough, but take care to work on your pronunciation. These endings carry a lot of information but are found in an unaccented syllable at the end of a word. English speakers are especially prone to turning unaccented syllables into an indistinct “schwa sound”. This is especially true with –as and –is. The A should be a clear “A as in father” and the I should be a clear “I as in machine”. Please see this video where I demonstrate the vowel sounds in Esperanto.

In order to be sure that people will understand what you’re saying make sure to pronounce these clearly. If your –as sounds like the last two letters of the English word “canvas” or your -is rhymes with “miss” or “kiss”, you’re doing it wrong. I meet a lot of post-beginner speakers who make this mistake and it makes it very difficult to understand what they’re trying to say. (Wait, did you go already or are you going to go now?) Here is a second video where I show how to pronounce -as, -is, and -os.

Did I mention that it’s important to clearly pronounce the endings on your verbs?

The present is now, the future is then

Another pitfall – slightly less confusing to your listener than the previous one, but still worth paying attention to – is the tendency to use the present tense to describe future events. In English we can get away with saying “I am going there tomorrow” – but in Esperanto, if we’re talking about something which will happen tomorrow, we need to use future tense.

• Mi iros tien morgaŭ. I am going there tomorrow. (I will go.)
• Je kioma horo komenciĝos la interkona vespero? When does the meet-and-greet start? (When will it start.)

Notice that we use the –os ending, even though we can use present tense in English. This is because we’re talking about a scheduled event in the future and the rules for those are different in English and Esperanto. It will take practice to get used to using the future tense here, but it’s the correct tense to use in Esperanto because we’re talking about events which will be happening in the future.

       

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Sinprezento or Memprezento?

Is introduction a sinprezento or a memprezento?    Photo credit SamLitvin on Flickr

Not only can si(n) and mem be used as free-standing words, they can be used as prefixes – sometimes with a similar meaning. The Esperanto word for “introduction” (as in a few words you might write or say to let people know who you are) can be translated to something like “self-presentation” – but is it sinprezento or memprezento?

I chose this word as my first example because it seems to be the most difficult one. You see fluent speakers using both terms, sometimes interchangeably in the same text. I do believe there is a right answer here, but it would be easier to start with some less troublesome examples.

Clear examples for mem–

One common meaning for mem used this way is to show that something happened with no outside help. This gives us words like  memvole (by one’s own will), meminstruito (a self-taught person), memlerninto (someone who learned with no outside help), memdisciplino (nobody else is going to do it for you), memstara (independent – literally self-standing), memevidenta (self-evident).

Another common usage  is “confidence” or memfido. That is, trust in yourself.

Sin– as prefix

Take an expression like doni sin (to give (of ) oneself). A person who does this can be said to be sindona (generous.) The prefix sin– in this case represents the object of the verb doni. (Note, when used this way, we always use si. We never say something like “Vi estas tre vindona“. It’s always sindona.)

Singarda (defensive) is another clear example where we use sin– and not mem-. We are guarding something – and that something is ourselves. We never say memgarda because that would imply that the thing is guarding all on its own. (Of course, now that I’ve said this, I found one author who does use this word; he’s lucky I’m not his editor!)

Fuzzier cases

In some cases you can use either prefix without really changing the meaning. The word for suicide (from Latin “self-killing”) can be either memmortigo or sinmortigo. (Sinmortigo seems more logical to me and avoids the double-m, but memmortigo seems slightly more common.) Generally if it can go either way, it’s better to use sin– especially if there’s any chance of there being confusion with the other meaning of mem– (happening with no outside help.)

I’m reminded of the memtaksilo (self-evaluation form) such as one might do before selecting a level at NASK or on a KER exam. One could argue that you are evaluating someone, that is, yourself (sin taksi) but more likely you would say that the evaluation is happening with no outside help. Either way, we might still prefer memtaksilo to avoid a collision with sintakso (syntax.)

So, what about “introduction”?

My first piece of advice is if you hear someone say one and you’re expecting the other, keep calm and keep the conversation going. That said, my preference is for sinprezento. It’s far more common, and makes more sense logically.

       

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