Recently, I was studying Esperanto via duolingo, when I saw li estis leganta and ili estis legantaj, why does the second have plural form? It is because of ili?

So around 2020 and 2021 during the pandemic I ended up studying Esperanto because I wanted to learn a new language, I ended up really enjoying it for a while, once I was happy enough with my skills I ended up joining the Esperanto discord server (lockdowns were still in place for me at the time) and trying out my skills in speaking and texting, but what I ended up finding was the server was very unwelcoming, Idk if it's changed but I found that there was a lot of hostility to other conlangs, Ido and Toki Pona especially were disliked there. I got accused and shamed for using Google translate after I made a typo while chatting, I set someone into a rage after saying "Ja" instead of "Jes" in a VC and that happened a second time with someone else because when I joined I said "Salu" like the French "Salut" instead of the full "Saluton", I just couldn't fit in anywhere. I wanted someone to speak with people who were down for casual convos or playing games just speaking Esperanto not English or Welsh my other two languages I know, but everyone seemed very snobbish and aggressive. It doesn't help when I asked my irl and online friends of they'd like to learn with my help they all turned it down one even saying it's a fake language with no speakers. This all left me very demotivated and I ended up dropping the language completely after about a year and a half of studying it. Recently I've had a burst of motivation to learn it again but I don't want to fall into the same issues again. Is there a way I can meet other Esperanto speakers without falling into the old elitist crowds again?

Well, I have a doubt about participles, first of all, I can say mi estas kuranta. Is there a way to shorten that, like mi kurantas, if so, mi estis kuranta will be mi kurantis?

Hello I recently started learning Esperanto but I have no one to speak it to so I keep losing interest in learning is there anyone that would be interested in talking with me so I can stay committed and remember it better?

Hello guys, first of all, I am not doing this because of some political agenda, but there is a problem that really bothers me: the word patrino. I am brazilian, so normally I speak Portuguese, and this word is really strange. It doesn't feel right to call my mother patrino, so I am here to suggest we add three new root words, wich are: matro, auxnto and sistero.

Just to be clear, I am not trying to change the language, it is just an addition, if you want to use patrino, you are welcome. Just like in regular esperanto, this words will be gender neutral, so matrino will be mother and matricxo will be father, auxnt-(in/icx)-o will be uncle or aunt, just like sister-(in/icx)-o will be be brother or sister.

I hope you consider this idea, the previously root words are still valid, it's just that I consider calling my female relatives by words that sound masculine in my language awkward.

By the way, I love esperanto!

We were recently discussing the word "vaporumi" (to steam - as in to steam food) and I received a notification about a comment that I was unable to reply to.

• Dum mi ŝatas la frenezon de la ~um~ vortoj, mi ankaŭ aprezas vortojn, kies signifon oni povus diveni 🤓

I've noticed that this same person confessed to being reluctant to "go too crazy" with -um- suggesting that using -um- can cause people to despair of deriving meaning from given common roots.

Esperanto is the common language of the Esperanto community

I say this a lot. One implication of this is that there are often established ways to say things. Our preference for one thing or another doesn't always factor in. This is true for many words with -um- in it.

Um is an undefined suffix. That means that its meaning is determined by context or convention.

Are the -um- words really that opaque?

When I'm working with my students over Zoom, occasionally I'll write down a good -um- word on a piece of scrap paper - with the thought that some day I'll clean my desk and compile the randomly documented -um- words into an article or chapter or other useful learning materials.

"Some day" is not today, unfortunately, but looking over some other real-world examples of words with -um- in them, they seem pretty transparent to me. Of course, I've been at this a while. I'd like to hear your perspective. Do you agree that the examples below are transparent? Which ones are giving you trouble?

I'd also like to know if you have any favorite -um- words, or ones which have given you trouble in practice.

Make sure you're really looking at an -um- word

Some Esperanto roots end with "um". In these cases it's part of the root. Some common examples are parfumo, mediumo, forumo, kostumo, minimumo. Don't be tricked.

Some short words in compounds can also trick you out "prilumi" is not an -um- word based on the non-existent root "pril" -- but rather "pri + lumi".

Some specific examples

Starting with the one that started this discussion - vaporumi

• Unue ni devas vaporumi la brokolon.
• Tamen via volo estos plenumita
• Mi vaksumos la plankon kaj ĝi brilos.
• Li butonumis sian surtuton ĝis la mentono
• por moki kaj skurĝi kaj krucumi; kaj la trian tagon li releviĝos
• li vagadis kun fratino tra la herbejoj florumitaj
• La du amikoj eniris grandan vestiblon, flankumitan per vicoj da kolonoj.

In the context of preparing dinner, you have to steam-something the broccoli. However your will will be full-somethinged. I will do something with wax to the floor and it will shine. He did something with buttons with his overcoat up to his chin. To be mocked and scouraged and cross-somethinged - and raised on the third day. The grassy places have been flower-somethinged. The vestibule was side-somethinged with rows of columns.

These are all real examples taken with minimal curation or modification from a search. Are any of these not clear from the context? You might not know what a surtuto is or what vakso is, but it's these words, not the -um- that makes these difficult.

Did anybody reading this far down not follow that we're steaming the broccoli, the will is being fulfilled, the floor waxed, the overcoat buttoned, Jesus was crucified, the grassy field is flowered, and the vestibule is flanked by columns?

I hope these examples were interesting, and if anybody has any good -um- stories or struggles, I'd like to hear them.

for example for "lernanto"

I know there is esperanto12.net but it's word base is pretty limited

I keep coming back to this thought from time to time... the structure of a sentence in Esperanto is supposed to be as free as possible, allowing subject verb and object to go in whatever order. However, estas seems to break this rule by making it... two subjects? i'm not sure.

is zingibra appropriate, this is also the word for the ginger plant in Esperanto, wondering if that is a translation error.

is orangxa fine?

I'm very much a beginner in Esperanto, going through the lernu courses. My question is about the way they use commas before the word "ke". In English, you generally don't use a comma before a subordinate clause, e.g. you'd write "He says that she is beautiful", not "He says, that she is beautiful." In the examples on lernu, however, they do seem to use the comma. E.g. "Li diras, ke ŝi estas bela" rather than just "Li diras ke ŝi estas bela". I can't find anything in their grammar explanations about the use of commas, and searching online it seems like Esperanto may not have any set rules about punctuation at all. My question is what, if anything, the actual rule about such comma usage is in Esperanto. Is lernu just using their own policy that seems strange to an English speaker?

I suck at speaking. I'm working on it, and I've been making videos to document my Esperanto learning progress, but I feel like I'm still stuck in the komencanto zone. Maybe komencinto, if I'm feeling confident.

I rewatched one of my videos and noticed a bunch of errors--missing accusatives, forgetting to pluralize everything in the sentence, and some grammar that I'm not sure is correct.
Here is the video. Even after double checking, I still found more errors after coming back to the video after a few days.

I guess this is less of an Esperanto question and more of a general language question, now that I think of it.

How does one catch errors right away? I seem to develop an "error blindness".

The way most online translators translate "steamed" (as in, cooked using steam) is "vaporita," but I see no reason why "vapora" is not suitable. Which is more correct?

WORDLEO 1386 3/6

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Ludu nun! wordleo.cat

Are they still available to download?

As an example of why good grammar matters, consider this FB memory which came up for me today:

To the school of thought that good Esperanto doesn't matter if people understand you, consider this grammatically incorrect sentence:\"Mi donu sciuroj arakidoj en la mateno.\" I (seriously) understood it at first as \"I will feed you squirrels and peanuts in the morning.\"

I think the intended meaning was "I feed peanuts to the squirrels in the morning."

"Mi donas arakidojn al sciuroj en la mateno" is the correct sentence, as I understand the intention.

Grammar isn't just there to make things difficult. It's to help us make sure our intended meaning is clear.

Quick question. Is this a good pdf to learn Esperanto from? And if not, could someone suggest a better one? Dankon!

https://esperanto-edmonton.wdfiles.com/local--files/kellerman-answerkey/Kellerman%20Kolor.pdf

Saluton al ĉiuj!

Is there any repository or collection of links for free and online materials (e.g. youtube videos, or free pdfs) to learn Esperanto that are targeted at children? I have encountered various things like the Esperanto Bookbox playlist, Mazi en Gondolando, Infankantoj, etc., along with the efforts of one parent named Jessika. I am tempted to start a webpage myself if there is not a good one already.

Kaj Tomaso, mi kredas, ke vi parolas/is Esperanton kun viaj gefiloj? Ĉu vi havas lecionojn aŭ konsilon por aliaj gepatroj?

ĉu estas diferenco inter "ŝati" kaj "plaĉi"? En la "Complete Esperanto by Tim Owen" mi trovis tiun ĉi frazon: "danci multe plaĉas al mi" sed mi kredas, ke mi povis ankaŭ diri "mi multe ŝatas danci", do la diferenco estas la uzo de "danci", kiel subjekto kaj en la dua frazo "mi" estis la subjekto... Ĉu mi pravas?

So I was doing my Duolingo and the lesson used the word "geamikojn". It was something like.... "Ĉu vi vidas vian geamikojn?" And I realized that either this was weird, or I don't know enough to understand why this isn't weird.

Ge- denotes a group of, or complete set of something, right? Patro is dad, patroj is dads, gepatroj is parents.

-oj/-ojn denotes a plural noun.

So amikojn means friends, but geamikojn also means friends. Or am I missing something? Does it denote a group of friends, or imply "all of your friends"?

Mi ne tro komprenis la malsameco inter la uzo de la o-vortoj kaj la uzo de la -aĵ- vortoj. Mi scias, ke oni povas konstrui la o-vortoj el verboj sed mi trovis, ke oni povas ankaŭ krei -aĵ- vortoj kaj iliaj signifoj estas samaj.

ekzemplo: Amuzo / amuzaĵo diro / diraĵo

mi esperas, ke mi komprenis bone la uzojn de ĉi tiuj gramatika formoj...

The recent discussion about "neologism" in Esperanto (whether we mean "malmalvortoj", "mavlingvaĵoj", or simply new coinages) has gotten me thinking about two topics:

1. Official vs unofficial words
2. Etymological dictionaries of Esperanto.

Along these lines, back when I was writing for Transparent Language, I wrote an article called Esperanto Fun With Etymology. If you're a beginner, it may be of interest. If you've been around a while, you may still pick up a thing or two. In it I point out some connections to common Esperanto words and English words you already know. Sometimes the connection is obvious, but not always.

Etymological Dictionaries

There are two well-known dictionaries that shed some light on where certain Esperanto words come from. Both have Etimologia and Vortaro in the title. One is by Vilborg. The other is by Cherpillod. If you're interested in this sort of thing, you should have both of these in your collection - although they may be out of print. I have the original edition of Vilborg's dictionary, which was published in 5 volumes, finished in 2001. (I believe it was republished after as a single volume.) The edition of Cherpillod that I have is from 2003.

The basic difference between the two dictionaries is that Cherpillod covers more words, but Vilborg covers a smaller number of words in greater detail. This is why it's nice to be able to consult both. Vilborg limited the dictionary to words that were official when it was published. Cherpillod basically covers all the words in PIV (vortaro dot net).

"Official" words

A lot of people new to Esperanto are surprised to hear that "official words" has a very specific meaning in Esperanto. It can be surprising to see how many words we use on a regular basis that are not official. A word is considered official in Esperanto if it was part of the Fundamento, or of the Akademio has made it official. When looking up words in PIV, you can spot the official words by a little asterisk (*) or number after the root.

Since 2003, PIV was updated and there was an 9th addition of official words, so I suppose we should say "at that time". There are now 209 official words not listed in Vilborg, and who knows how many additions to PIV that are not in Cherpillod.

Two words that came up previously are kaco and cico. As it turns out, kaco is not official - but cico actually is. It was only made official in 2007, so neither word is in Vilborg. Checking in Cherpillod confirms, however, that kaco is from Italian and cico is from German. So now you know.

Official does not mean uncommon

I recently picked an Esperanto letter at random and started flipping through the dictionary. I literally picked a random number and counted through the alphabet. The letter I picked was Ŭ which didn't have a lot of words to look at so I did V instead - scrolling through PIV for any V-word that I would feel comfortable using that was either not yet official, or was only made official after Vilborg came out.

The two V-words on my list that were made official in 2007 are vagino and vakuo. I don't know how you'd refer to these concepts without using these words. It's not like nobody talked about this before 2007. Like anything else, we just used the words that other Esperanto speakers used and didn't worry about whether they were official.

One pair or V-words vandalo/vandalismo are said to have been used by Zamenhof - but so far nobody has seen fit to make them official. The rest of the list of unofficial V-words that use, I'll just post here as a list. Not all of them are that common - I mean it's been a while since I've talked about wallabies in Esperanto, and I don't expect everybody to know how to say "Variety Show" in Esperanto (although watching Esperanto Variety Show on YouTube is something different), these are all words that we can use even if they're not "official".

• vagabondo
• vakero
• valabio
• varfo
• varieteo
• vavo
• vektoro
• veldi
• vendeto
• vestiĝo

Hello, I am a graduate student in general linguistics and I would like to write my thesis on Esperanto and the lexical creations, neologisms, of this language, with a particular focus on influences from other languages and from native speakers of other languages. Does this sound interesting to you? Do you happen to have any suggestions for me? I would generally like to discuss the topic. Thank you!

Ekz:

Mi diras aferojn.+Mi pensas ke ili veras.

Divinite, ĉu:

Mi diras aferojn, mi pensas, ke kiuj veras.

Mi diras aferojn, kiuj mi pensas, ke veras

Mi diras aferojn, ke kiuj veras, mi pensas

Google translate diris:

Mi diras aferojn, kiujn mi pensas, ke veras. Pri aliaj vortoj kaj:

Mi diras aferojn, kiujn mi opinias veraj. Pri la veraj vortoj

https://preview.redd.it/z4k97tjcluwd1.png?width=1111&format=png&auto=webp&s=4e9d7c6e9131b61187ccf51cdaeed5dbc3ff152f

in some examples you can drop the estas since without it seems the sentence assume an infinitive tense? heres an example of it being correct-

https://preview.redd.it/jm88kuw1nuwd1.png?width=750&format=png&auto=webp&s=30b0b429604c8df681b7964dc9f792b7a608bfc5

could someone clarify this for me?

In a recent thread, I asserted that ROOT + i = to do the action associated with the root. Somebody questioned this. As a general rule, I hold this to be self-evident, following from the very definition of "verb." It also touches on basic daily principles of Esperanto word formation.

What is a root?

In Esperanto, a root is the part of a word not including the grammatical ending. So, if we have a word like kuri (mi kuras / I run), the root would be kur-. For granda the root is grand-. For domo the root is dom-. In dictionaries, you'll often see this written as kur/i, grand/a, and dom/o.

Generally, a root is seen as having a basic meaning. Usually this basic meaning is associated with a part of speech. Dom-, for example, has to do with houses - which are physical things. Grand- has to do with size, which is a quality. Kur- has to do with running, which is an action. These associations are sometimes called "the grammatical character of the root". Even if we say that dom- is a "noun root", it doesn't actually become a noun till we add the -o and get domo.

By switching the grammatical endings, we can come up with new words such as grando (size), kuro (a run), doma (domestic). Exactly how this works in various situation is a big part of learning Esperanto.

What is a verb?

A verb basically shows what the subject is doing. Traditionally it's said that they show an action, occurrence, or state. Esperanto verbs are no different.

When explaining word formation, I generally just say "action" for simplicity. I don't think most people make a distinction between an "action" and an "occurrence". For example when bananas ripen, does it not seem that the bananas are doing an action? (To me it does.) When I say that est/i means "to do the action associated with being", is it not obvious that we mean "to be"? (to me it is).

How do verbs and roots get together?

The easiest situation to consider is when we have a verb root and add a verb ending. Just flipping through the D section of the dictionary, I see damni, danci, danki - to damn, dance, and thank, respectively. When we use these as verbs, they mean "to do the action associated with damning, dancing, or thanking" -- that is, they mean to damn someone, dance, or thank. Where it becomes more interesting is when we use other kinds of roots.

One classic example is martel/o - a hammer. If we change this to a verb (marteli) it means to do the action associated with a hammer -- that is... to hammer something - to HIT something with a hammer. This is because people know that hammers are for hitting. Other roots have different actions associated with them - and not necessarily related to hitting.

Flipping through the dictionary again - this time at F

• fabl/o (a fable) -> fabl/i (to tell a fable)
• fabrik/o (a factory) -> fabrik/i (to make in a factory)
• faktur/o (a bill / invoice) -> faktur/i (to invoice, to write on a bill)

Clearly, hammers are associated with hitting, fables are things that we tell, factories are places that we make things in, invoices are things that you write on. This list could go on -- but there are other roots where the meaning is not so clear. Continuing through the Fs I see falk/o (falcon). Maybe the verb form would mean "to act like a falcon" or "to keep falcons" or "to hunt with falcons." It's possible it doesn't really mean anything at all.

In other cases, a noun can have more than one action associated with it -- or perhaps two closely related actions.

• fum/o (smoke) -> fum/i (to smoke)

Note that this can mean "to give off smoke" (la cindroj fumas) or to smoke tobacco or similar products. Personally, I like to imagine that this is one meaning and that when people go outside to smoke on their breaks they're out there giving off smoke. Not everybody sees it that way, which is fine.

What about adjectives?

Careful readers will notice that in the previous section I only talked about verb roots and noun roots in my examples. In part this was because it's often easier to see "the action associated with the root" in these cases. I also think there are more of them, so it's easier to find.

A third reason is that I've already written a whole article over on Transparent Language about this.

But following the same pattern and scrolling through R, the first adjective in PIV with a verb entries are

• rapid/a (fast) -> rapid/i (to hurry - to try to do something fast)
• reciprok/a (reciprocal) -> reciprok/i (to reciprocate i.e. to give reciprocally)

Actually, that's all I found for the Rs. There were a few other adjectives, but none of them had actions that were clearly associated with them to the point where these ended up in a dictionary. As with the example of falko above, the action may or may not be clear.

Finally

Different words and different word orders exist in Esperanto for a reason. Quite often when we change these things it can change a nuance or even the whole meaning.

A fun example is "ni ĉetablas." Literally: we at-table-verb / we are at-tableing.

This is not necessarily a common expression. Someone might say that we are at the table. To me it's a little more active. It's even more than "ni sidas ĉe la tablo". It's more like "here we are hanging out together at the table - doing the kinds of things we like to do together here." We're doing the action associated with "at the table".

i have only just started on Duolingo and am having issues with the grammar.

https://preview.redd.it/hbfjerr30jwd1.png?width=1188&format=png&auto=webp&s=dce7b183586795fd516d7c93ecc9f8a84b5ab05f

i don't understand how this is incorrect. i thought estas mean is am and are? there are other cases of esperanto senteces "skipping" words like estas and la. another case of me not understanding estas is in the sentence kiel fartas adamo kaj sofia if i swapper fartas with estas it says i got the answer wrong? i really dont get it and have been unable to progress there are some other things but don't have examples at current. would appreciate the help.

The title is a bit of an over-exaggeration, but I feel like it's something that's a bit of a stumbling block from pursuing Esperanto in earnest. I feel like maybe I'm not as clever as many of the speakers of this wonderful language is

I've been a lurker for a little while now, and it seems like a very great community! There are some very knowledgeable people that are available to answer questions, but I feel like some of the finer points of thinking about languages and the mechanics are pretty intimidating, or are for me anyway.

Sorry for the long first post, but can just a normal goober that's average actually have an OK command of Esperanto? Thank you for reading!