Frank Mitchell

Esperanto lexicon

Pronunciation

In Esperanto, individual letters are pronounced according to the list below. Each letter is pronounced (there are no silent letters), and the emphasis is always placed on the second to last syllable in a word.

Nouns

Noun endings

Gender of nouns

Adding an “-in-” to an Esperanto noun makes it specifically female. “Father” is “patro”; “mother is patrino”. Adding a “vir-” prefix makes a noun specifically male. It’s rare that you have to mark sex, but it’s advisable to avoid using the root form of a word as the male form if there’s going to be a chance of ambiguity.

Plural nouns

Nouns are made plural by adding a “-j” ending on to them. So “sons” is “filoj”, “pens” is “plumoj”, and “girls” (as an object noun) is “knabinojn”.

Pronouns

Verbs

All verbs are in their infinitive form.

Verb tenses

Negation of verbs

Verbs in Esperanto are negated by putting “ne” in front of them. So “don’t have” is “ne havas” and “doesn’t do” is “ne faras”.

Adjectives

Colors

Possessive adjectives

Negation of adjectives

Adjectives in Esperanto are negated by prefixing them with “mal-”. So “bad” is “malbona”, “cold” is “malvarma”, and “dirty” is “malpura”.

Adjective agreement

The adjective ending must agree with the noun it describes. So, if the noun is an object (-n), the adjective must also be an object. If the noun is plural (-j), the adjective must also be plural.

Determiners, conjunctions, prepositions, etc.

Numbers