Esperanto

Tastify

I’ve been playing around with making words in Esperanto recently. Been daydreaming in conversations with people. Every word they say that I don’t know in Esperanto, I try to make it, using only what I do know in Esperanto. In my playing, I’ve stumbled on a useful

Esperanto

Unification day

I was listening to really quite an interesting talk today, but the room was SO incredibly warm, and I’d had such a great deal for lunch. So I began to nod off… BUT! In an effort to stay awake and thinking, I began to listen really hard, and try

Esperanto

Klingons invade Esperanto

I was casually reading some Esperanto, when suddenly the word klingon popped up in the most serious of texts! I then realised it was simply the word klingo “blade” with the accusative “n” on the end to mark it as the object of the sentence. Anyway, it served as a

Esperanto

Word-building formula

Today we play with a neat little formula for building certain types of word! If you aren’t familiar with viewing Esperanto root words as having an inherent type (“object”,”quality”, or “action”), then have a quick read of my previous post. Onwards! Imagine you are talking about a word:

Esperanto

Whichth hour is it?

In Esperanto this is how you’d say it’s 3 o’clock: estas la tria (horo) literally: it’s the third (hour) Which I think is nice and simple. The little interesting thing today, is in asking the question “what time is it? kioma horo estas?  what time is

Esperanto

Head-yes and Head-no

Two fantastic verbs today: kapjesi to nod (kap-YES-ee) kapnei to shake ones head (kap-NE-ee) These words are both awesome for two reasons: Firstly, what a perfect and to-the-point construction they have! jesi to say yes, to assent nei to say no, to deny So coming together with kapo "head&

Esperanto

"ing" does too much in English

Here’s a little treat that is floating around the internet in all sorts of nooks and crannies. All of the following mean "I saw the boy running": 1. mi vidis la knabon kuri 2. mi vidis la knabon kuranta 3. mi vidis la knabon kurantan What’s

Esperanto

What to do?

I happened across an interesting little paragraph in the PMEG! Check out the paragraph that starts ĉefverbecaj I-verboj aperas ankaŭ en iaj mallongigitaj esprimoj de dubo aŭ hezito. mainverb-like I-verbs also appear in some shortened expressions of doubt or hesitation. So normally the “-i” form of a verb isn’t

Esperanto

An interesting mood

Let's talk about one of Esperanto’s interesting verb moods: the “U-mood”. Most English books seem to call it the imperative mood. But on page 67 of “Being Colloquial in Esperanto”, David Jordan points out that its functions include things that could be considered “imperative”, “volitive” or “subjunctive”

Esperanto

Avoid using the past to discuss the future

Just noticed a sneaky little note at the end of this PMEG page. Thought I’d bring it up! Now keep in mind that the simple past, present, and future tenses in Esperanto (words ending in -is,-as,-os respectively) actually do quite a bit of work. For example, past

Esperanto

The lurking nuance

I’ve talked before about using the verb form of a normally a-word (adjective) instead of using “estas [adjective]”, for example: vi estas kuraĝa you are courageous vi kuraĝas you are courageous For a long while, I’ve kept my eye open for any information about whether these phrases have

Esperanto

A bent rule?

Remember the little word si? I have a post about it here, where it has strict rules about how it is used. Namely, it always refers to the subject of the verb. But there are some occasions where it bends those rules, and those are in certain fixed expressions. per

Esperanto

A clutch of eggs

Today is all about da! Most often translated as "of", it has a very specific use all to itself. It mustn't be confused with de, which is another word often translated as "of". Strap in till the end to learn the true power of

Esperanto

Memphasis

I enjoy when a language sets aside a specific word for a useful feature, rather than overloading existing terms. And today is one example of where Esperanto does just that. A little useful word: mem Mem goes after a word in order to stress that we’re talking about just

Esperanto

Coulda woulda shoulda

Let me present to you three special words: devus should volus would povus could Let's have a brief explanation of this -us ending first. The -us usually puts a word into the conditional mood (beware not to pronounce it like English “us”; it is pronounced “oos”) mi manĝas

Esperanto

Adjectival Antics

Thought I’d talk a little of the frolicking of adjectives today! This post relies on you knowing what I mean by “quality-like” roots,”action-like” root words and “thing-like” root words. Luckily, you can find out in my previous post. So today’s post answers the question: what happens when

Esperanto

Action, Quality, Thing.

For the sake of future posts, word roots types are the topic for today. This is an important concept in Esperanto for understanding how we build words. Most words in Esperanto can be said to consist of a root and an ending, where the root gives the word the core

Esperanto

More is not necessarily more

I realised after a while that I’ve been reading sentences containing pli and plu for a while now without any problem. But I translate them most often as “more” (both of them). It occurred to me that Esperanto usually has a good reason for having more than one of

Esperanto

The magic of the verbal ending

You've gotta have this skill in your arsenal. We can tell a verb infinitive (basic dictionary form) apart with the ending ‘i’: helpi to help kuri to run marŝi to walk (MAR- shee) As with the other endings, you can make a word into a verb by exchanging

Esperanto

He killed his father

“He killed his father!” Did he kill his own father? Or did he kill another man’s father? You and your feeble English just don’t know! In Esperanto, there is a way of resolving this and similar kinds of ambiguity. The word for “he” is li. The word for

Esperanto

The worst thing

I ran out of my favourite tea a little while ago. THE HORROR. Why is it always so sudden? But on the upside inspiration for a new Esperanto word accosted me: la senteosentaĉo Which means: the terrible feeling of being without tea Sento is a feeling or sentiment. One can

Esperanto

Subjecting the object to the subject

Having studied language (especially English) with the intention of finding all of the little aspects of natural language that break the poor computer programs that try to understand it, in order to improve said programs, I’m particularly delighted when I find Esperanto features that help to eliminate these problems.

Esperanto

Simple yet expressive

For the most part, it seems that Esperanto tries to ensure that there is only one word for one particular sense, instead of having endless synonyms for words. A friend, having discovered this trend, declared that Esperanto must be the dullest language, with only single way to express things. They

Esperanto

I don't want "to be"

Something tickled me today. I always wondered, how necessary are all the distinctions between various types of word? Or sub-categories of word? Some just don’t seem necessary. What if instead of having to introduce your state of being with the verb “to be” (is/are/am), you could just

Esperanto

Rewriting history - what are you doing here?

Congratulations on scrolling this far! That's a level of curiosity I admire - why not say hi below. This post never happened on the old blog so no one would have seen it published at this early date; you'd only find it through your own dogged