What are some good sources to start learning Esperanto? I am currently using a mini YouTube series by a guy named EvilDea but that is it. I also know about lernuesperanto.com and plan on using it. But does anyone have other good sources to learn the language?

Saluton al ĉiuj! Mi estas Luis kaj mi lernas Esperanto nun. Mi estas komencanto. However, my Esperanto level is not so high, but I want to practice basic words with someone but I don't know where I can find esperantists apart from here.

The question was asked in r/Esperanto about how to say "every damn day" in Esperanto. I asked for a clarification of what the asker was trying to say, but unfortunately the question was removed by the moderators (for not using the "questions thread") before I got a reply.

But the responses given so far are illustrative. Just about every single one of them was focused on on "what's the best word for damn?", but this question can't be answered without taking a big step back.

I wrote:

I would say the first step in answering this question would be to take a giant step back and think not about the expression "every damn day" - but to ask yourself what idea you're actually trying to express.

Why do you want to say "every damn day"? What is happening "every damn day"? What does the word "damn" bring to the overall meaning of the whole message you're composing?

I have my doubts about most of the answers given. An expression like "ĉiun damnitan tagon" could just as easily mean "on all the days that are damned" (an not on the good ones).

Every other day

There is a set expression in Esperanto: ĉiun duan tagon -- it means that one day you do the thing, the next day you don't. This expression can be expanded: ĉiun kvardekan tagon means that you do the thing once every 40 days.

It seems to me that if just plug a word in for "damn" into this expression, we'll be saying something different from what we intend.

• Ĉiun duan tagon - every other day
• Ĉiun kvardekan tagon - every 40 days
• Ĉiun sanktan tagon - on all holy days
• Ĉiun damn[it]an tagon - on any day which has been damned

Every Damn[ed] Day

The original asker didn't clarify what s/he wanted to say or what context this expression would be used to, but like any other translation request, we can often find the answer ourselves if we stop to ask the question "How could I say XYZ in the original language if I couldn't use the word?".

So -- what does "every damn day" mean? How would we say it if we couldn't say "every damn day."

We'll also include any expression with a word between "every" and "day".

• every damn day
• every stinking day
• every f-ing day
• every goll-durned day

These all mean the same thing -- and that is simply "every day." The only thing "damn" adds here is the idea of frustration.

• You tell me that every damn day
• You tell me that every day and I'm frustrated by the repetition.
• Oh come on now, you tell me that every day.
• You frickin' tell me that every day.

So... with that in mind, how do you say "every damn day" in Esperanto?

Kial iuj homoj uzas apostrofon ( ' ), ĉe la fino de vortoj anstataŭe de la sufikso? (Ekz. " kant' "anstataŭe de "kanto"). Laŭ mia opinio, ĝi plimalfaciligas ĝi kompreni kelkfoje.

Jen alia kvizo, multe pli facila.

Kelkaj vortoj en esperanto tre similas. Kio estas la diferenco inter tiuj ĉi vortoj?

• metro, kaj metroo
• pesi, kaj pezi
• serĉi, kaj ŝerci

Pli malfacile:

• por, kaj pro

Bonvolu respondi sube.

Tio ĉi estas malfacila enigmo por spertuloj.

Kunmetu la silabojn kiuj aperas sube por krei la nomojn de:

• 5 floroj
• 5 birdoj
• 5 arboj
• 5 mamuloj

Vi rajtas uzi silabon tiom ofte kiom ĝi aperas en la listo, do vi povas uzi "pe" nur unu fojon, sed "ro" kvin fojojn.

a a a ba be bi co e ga jo ju ka kan ko ko ko ku le le li li li li lo lo lo lo lo me mo na naj ne ni no no o o pa pa pe pi plo po po po ri ro ro ro ro ro sa se tin to tu tu vo ze zo

Ekzemple vi povus kunmeti "plo" kaj "ro" por krei la vorton "ploro", sed tio estas nek floro, nek birdo, nek arbo, nek mamulo. ;-)

Sukceson!

I'm a beginner and use Google translate but trying to learn. I like videogames, movies, running, UFC, football.

I created a directory of useful resources to learn languages. The Esperanto section has only 10 tools. Any good resources that's missing?

https://languagetools.directory/languages/esperanto

I suppose by now just about everybody has seen this cartoon.
It expresses much of my experience on this subreddit.

https://preview.redd.it/426hjl8o4sde1.png?width=300&format=png&auto=webp&s=d6793780f10bfb14f79d3be0506a4104667c6039

The internet has made it much easier for us to find the things that are interesting to us - such as Esperanto. It has also made it much easier for fools and know-it-alls to find us. Much to my shame, I find it harder not to let these people rent space in my head.

But all the same, it's important to know that much of what is posted in this forum is simply wrong. There aren't enough hours in the day to correct all the mistakes, or to post detailed explanations of why or how they're wrong. In the last few days, I've engaged with someone who has argued that "por monsumon" is good Esperanto, and someone who thinks that the number of times you have breakfast with someone has nothing to do with how well you know a person or what they might think about a topic.

I generally don't see the point in engaging with these people - but then someone comes along and votes that comment up -- like they've actually made a good point.

Mi havis dudek du jarojn

This is the normal and most common way to express the idea "I used to be 22" in Esperanto. I have said this clearly and plainly in this forum this week. Anybody who thinks I've said otherwise (anywhere) simply does not know how to read.

And yet (it has come to my attention) that someone whom I have blocked is reading the forum "incognito" and then coming back to suggest that I have indeed said otherwise, and that I should "complain to Bertilo" about it.

I actually do know Bertilo well enough to "complain to" him about things -- or at least to bring things to his attention when I think he's mistaken or when it's clear that his wording has become a stumbling block for people. It's a tiny contribution, but I'm confident that some of my feedback will be incorporated in future editions of PMEG.

Indeed the last time I brought something to Bertilo's attention, it was with regard to something this same blocked user said in this forum. This was in October of last year and had to do with this section of PMEG.

Bertilo's response was "Tio estas grava misinterpreto." That is -- this blocked user doesn't know how to read.

And so - I'm sorry to anybody who wanted me to engage with further nonsense and misrepresentations from this person.

My advice

When asking or considering advice in this forum, if someone links to PMEG, don't actually believe them about what it says. Read it yourself.

And if you have a question about anything I've said, please ask.

I've heard there are some intellectual, neurological & community reasons why esparanto might be good, but these don't appeal to me. The only reason I'd want to learn a language is if it unlocks opertunity for travel. Given I speak english I can generally get around most major cities anyway. So does esparanto open any doors for me when traveling?

The learning path from A1 to B2 is clearly demarcated by a hundred years of great textbooks, internet courses, graded readers, and so on, but there is very little guided material available beyond this level. Advanced learners are mostly expected to get on with it and learn by reading, writing, and interaction with other speakers without much further guidance.

There are readers/textbooks aimed at B1/B2 levels like Boltons’ “Faktoj kaj Fantazio” or Gubbins’ “Kunvojaĝo”. Of textbooks aimed at more advanced readers, I am only really aware of Auld’s “Paŝoj al Plena Posedo”, the newly rereleased “Traduku!” and Kolker’s “Vojago en Esperanto-lando.”* All of these are great as far as they go and are recommended.

Of all the online advanced exercises, the one which I enjoyed most and which, after discovering, I completed every one, was Hoss Firooznia’s excellent column (u/hochjo) in EsperantoUSA (The idea for the column itself sprung from Auld’s column in the Brita Esperantisto on which the aforementioned Traduku! was based). Having completed all of Hoss Firooznia’s columns and worked through Traduku!, I was starved for a while for more material until it occurred to me that there is a ready source.

Google Translate is generally derided among Esperantists, and with good reason. But while the translations from English (or other languages) to Esperanto are pedestrian at best and laughable at worst, the same is not true from Esperanto to English. The translations from Esperanto to English are often quite good, quite colloquial, and even when wrong or a little off are more than good enough for the exercise I am about to describe.

This exercise first occurred to me while reading a long portion of dialogue in a Sten Johansson novel. As someone who gets to speak Esperanto far less often than I wish, I was intrigued by the flow of the dialogue, by the colloquialisms in his writing. As any writer will know, dialogue is one of the hardest things to write, and perhaps for Esperantists one of the harder aspects of the language to acquire when there can be long stretches without the opportunity to speak person to person.

A snapshot of the page, dropped into Google Translate, rendered a surprisingly good translation. Without reference to the original, I retranslated it into Esperanto. As I puzzled over word and phrase choices, it was a good lesson that reading fluently doesn't necessarily translate to being able to write in the same way . Afterwards, putting the original, the translation, and my own retranslation into a spreadsheet, with the Vortaro and PMEG at hand, I interrogated each sentence against the original, checking against PMEG where I might have misunderstood some grammatical point or against the Vortaro, some unusual word choice or usage I was not familiar with. Along the way, I added my newfound insights to my language notebook, with the example sentences (and page references) and sometimes necessary definitions.

Some years later, I have probably done this exercise, some thirty or forty times, often after reading a passage and finding it particularly striking or grammatical or stylistically interesting. I still find it an engaging exercise.

My caveat to this exercise is that you only get as good as you put in, so choose writers, authors, or sources that are well known in Esperanto and are likely to have been reviewed by an editor. The aforementioned Johansson, as well as Trevor Steele or Claude Piron, are all great if fiction interests you; any of Kalle Knivilla’s contemporary histories, the speeches of Zamenhof or Lapenna, or even the financial reports of the UEA !. There is plenty of contemporary material on the pages of the Ondo de Esperanto or Libera Folio to try this exercise on. (If you are less advanced, certainly this approach would work well with the more limited texts at uea.Facila.org.)

(Anybody interested in experimenting with translation as a language learning tool should watch Luca Lampariello - Translation as a Tool to Learn Any Language)

* The most recent edition of Vojaĝo is no longer available. The translations selected for Traduku! are very 1960/1970s British and filled with expressions and coinages which would sound strange to many modern British readers, let alone those from elsewhere in the world.

We have the dvd copies of Pasporto Al La Tuta Mundo.

Can anyone please guide me to the workbook? This is all we are missing.

Ĉiu klarigo kiun mi trovis ne sufiĉas...

Because bonvenon of course means welcome and the suffix re- means again So rebonvenon would be welcome again or welcome back??

Hey, sorry if this has been asked before. I looked at a complete list of country and people names, and I tried to find a pattern of when it is -io/ujo and -o vs. when it is -o and -ano. I thought I had found it: it's the first one (-io/ujo and -o) when there is also a language named after the country, for example Italy would be Italio and an Italian (person) would be Italo, because Italian is also the name of a language (la itala lingvo). As opposed to Brazilo and Brazilano, because Brazilian isn't a language, it only describes a person from Brazil. I saw that this pattern worked in most cases, but there were a few exceptions. For example, Austria is Aŭstrio/Aŭstrujo and an Austrian (person) is aŭstro, even though Austrian isn't a language (ili plejparte parolas la germanan, mi kredas). So maybe that's not actually the pattern? Is there even a pattern, or do I just have to memorize them all?

is there any reason for this? as a beginner esperantist i adore the logic and consistency of the language but the numbers completely do not follow this

—- dankon pro la respondojn

I'm really struggling with trying to understand when to add 'n' to a language, ie: la angla, vs la anglan. I'm using duolingo with supplemental resources from the internet, and almost every time I don't add an 'n' it actually needed one, and vice-versa. Can anyone share a rule to help me get past this issue?

Like how in school youd get lists of just clothing or art or archeological conspiracy theory words to practice writing on specific topics.

Saluton!

In January, the London Esperanto Club (LEK) will be launching new weekly online Esperanto courses ranging from beginner (A1) to advanced (C1) levels. You can find the list on this page:
https://londonaesperantoklubo.com/online-esperanto-courses.html

Two of them are for complete beginners. We also have a conversation course with Peter (a native speaker of Esperanto!) on Sundays.

Participants are welcome to join multiple courses. However, we ask that you register only if you are confident you can attend most weeks as the number of participants in each group is limited to around 15 people.

If you know anyone who might be interested in learning Esperanto, it would really help if you could let them know about our new courses for complete beginners. Thank you.

We do our best to keep our courses free of charge, but for some courses we ask for a small voluntary contribution to help us cover our running costs.

If you have any questions or need more information, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Dankon,

Anthony

https://preview.redd.it/4hha4r24s78e1.png?width=728&format=png&auto=webp&s=905973164c09928d4845113cdc5c5f8576d346d4

Saluton. I am a beginner in Esperanto and have been fully dedicated to learning the language. So far I only gotten two weeks of studying under my belt, but it has been going well.

I am 1000% fully obsessed with learning Esperanto and willing to take up any means to become fluent.

Consequently, I am looking for fellow Esperanto students who are open to starting an online circle group centered around learning Esperanto.

We can send each other resources, practice together, keep each other motivated, send out questions and answers, and share experiences with the Esperanto community: all of these are options.

If anyone seems interested or would like to discuss ideas, DM me on Reddit. We can discuss which platforms work the best, and select ideas on what we want want. This can be either a full group setting or just two people.

I only have a few necessary boundaries.

1. No romance or sexual encounters.

2. No religious or political preaching.

3. No bigotry (racism, misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, etc)

4. Must be LGBTQ-friendly.

5. Must be welcoming to beginners --not just me. ;)

These are only my boundaries. Please DM if this sounds like something you'd be interested in and let's help each other learn this amazing language!

Dankon!

I am currently learning about conveying movement towards somewhere. In my book (1950), it uses adverbs as the place where you move towards, but in other books I see them using nouns. When do you use nouns vs adverbs, or is it interchangeable?

The book that I'm using is from the 50s if that plays into this.

I'm a beginner to Esperanto. Where do people typically find other speakers IRL, a club or convention or something?