Esperanto/Lesson 1

 Main page — Next lesson In this lesson we will first get acquainted with the pronunciation of Esperanto, after which we will get to know some very basic facts about Esperanto nouns and verbs. As always, there will be vocabulary to be memorized.

How to pronounce Esperanto
Esperanto is exactly pronounced as it is written and written as pronounced. Despite being a constructed language that is mainly spoken by second-language speakers, there are distinct norms about what is a good pronunciation. We will start this course by discussing and practicing these norms.

b, d, f, h, m, n, v, and z are pronounced as in English. As in most native English accents, b and d are still pronounced as such (i.e. as voiced consonants) at the end of a word, and do not become devoiced to something like a "p" or "t", e.g. "sub" and "sed" do not sound like sup* and set*.

Esperanto has 5 vowels, which are distinctly different from any of the vowels of English. They are the same as the five vowels of Spanish. All are pronounced clearly, without any offglides from one sound to another (which is common in English). If two vowels directly follow one another, then both are still pronounced exactly the same and as part of different syllables. In words of two or more syllables, the next-to-last syllable (penult) is always stressed.

Before continuing on to the consonants that are pronounced differently from English, take some time to practice pronouncing these vowels. The exercises below will guide you through this.

We'll now look at the consonants that are pronounced similarly to those in English.

This pronunciation of "k", "p", and "t" is like their pronunciation in languages like French, Spanish, Italian, and Russian, among others.

Let's now practice this:

Esperanto also has several letters with pronunciations that are quite different from the associated pronunciation in English and a few letters that do not exist in English. Most of these latter letters have familiar pronunciations, however.

The diacritic on ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, and ŝ is called a circumflex, and the diacritic on ŭ is called a breve.

Let's now practice this:

You are now familiar with all of the letters of Esperanto and their associated sounds. You may have noticed that q, w, x, and y have not been covered. This is because they are not part of the Esperanto alphabet.

The alphabetic order of Esperanto is similar to that of English, except that letters with diacritics are considered distinct and follow their counterparts without diacritics:

a, b, c, ĉ, d, e, f, g, ĝ, h, ĥ, i, j, ĵ, k, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, ŝ, t, u, ŭ, v, z

To get the names of the letters, simply tack on an "-o" to the consonants: a, bo, co, ĉo, do, e, fo, go, ĝo, etc.

We'll practice with spelling out words once we know something more about Esperanto.

Parts of speech
Like in all languages, words in Esperanto can be divided into several types. In Esperanto, different parts of speech are overtly marked and thus have their own endings, though there are few complicating factors. In this lesson, we will introduce nouns and verbs and a few prepositions will be introduced.

Nouns
Nouns are words that usually denote persons, things, place, or ideas. Examples can be found in the box directly below.

In Esperanto, nouns are marked by the suffix -o. Examples are in the short vocabulary section below.

Vocabulary
Here are the first words for you to memorize.

Plurals
To indicate that a noun is in the plural, Esperanto tacks on the suffix -j:

Article
Esperanto has a definite article (i.e. "the"), "la", but no indefinite article (i.e. "a(n)"). The meaning of the indefinite article in English is conveyed by the absence of an article:

La hundo estas en la ĝardeno. — The dog is in the garden. Hundo estas en la ĝardeno. — A dog is in the garden. (There is a dog in the garden.)

Verbs
Verbs are those words that denote an action, occurrence, or state of being. Examples can be found in the box directly below:

In Esperanto, verbs can have one of several endings, depending on tense, among a few other things. In this lesson we will only get to know the ending of verbs in the present tense: -as. Esperanto verbs do not change form depending who or what is doing the verb. For example:

Mi estas en la ĝardeno. – I am in the garden. Li estas en la domo. – He is in the house. La infanoj estas en la parko. - The children are in the park.

Vocabulary
Here are some more words that you should memorize. Note the regular pronunciation that differs from their lookalikes with the same meaning in English: ĝardeno, birdo, boato.

Exercises
Have you memorized the vocabulary of this lesson? Then you can now practice it by translating the following sentences:

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