Guide to Esperanto Pronunciation

Esperanto is an artificial language designed to be easy to learn, especially for those familiar with Latin and the Romance languages. This guide to Esperanto characters and pronunciation will help a beginner learning to read and speak Esperanto.

Stresses

Esperanto words are always stressed on the second-to-last syllable.

Consonants

In most cases, the pronunciation of Esperanto consonants is similar to English. In the case of the following, the pronunciation is different from English, or the English letter can be pronounced in different ways depending on context, while the pronunciation of letters in Esperanto is fixed.

C is never an S or K sound, but always TS, as in "cats" and "antsy." The word nacio "nation" is pronounced "nah TSEE oh."

G is always a hard G sound, as in "go" and "forgotten." The word legi "to read" is pronounced "LEH ghee."

J makes the sound of a Y. Sometimes it acts as a vowel. Esperanto vowels are pronounced separately, not as diphthongs (single syllables that combine two vowel sounds), and so J is used to create the diphthongs aj (pronounced "eye"), oj ("oy" as in "boy"), ej ("ay" as in "bay"), and uj ("uoy" as in "buoy"). It can also act as a consonant, as in the word jam "already," pronounced "YAHM."

K is always a hard sound, as in "key" and "keen." The word klubo "club, group" is pronounced "KLOO boh." There is no Q in Esperanto, but the consonant cluster KV is used to make a sound like the QU in the German Quelle "source," pronounced "KVEHL luh."

Vowels

Ais the English long A, as in "father" and "farm." The word amiko "friend" is pronounced "ah MEE koh."

E is pronounced EH, as in "egg" and "friend." It should never become a diphthong, as in the pronunciation of the English letter A ("EHee"). The word esti "to be" is pronounced "EH stee."

Iis pronounced as the English long I or EE, as in "fiend" and "heed." The word ili "they" is pronounced "EE lee."

O is round and open, as in "over" and "old." The word osto "bone" is pronounced "OH stoh."

U is a long U or OO sound, as in "moot" and "spoon." It never sounds like "you," as in "unicorn." The word unu "one" is pronounced "OO noo."

Special Characters

Esperanto has six characters not used in the English alphabet: Ĉ, Ĝ, Ĥ, Ĵ, Ŝ and Ŭ. (When a program cannot support accents, these characters are written as CX, GX, HX, JX, SX, and UX.)

Ĉ is pronounced CH, as in "champ" and "chosen." The word ĉar "because" is pronounced like the English word "char."

Ĝ is a soft G sound, as in "gem" and "genes." The word ĝoji "to be glad" is pronounced "JOY ee."

Ĥ is a sound that does not occur in English at all, the guttural CH of the German buch "book" or the Scottish loch. It is uncommon and, in modern speech, is often replaced with K.

Ĵ is pronounced as the J in the French déjà vu.

Ŝ is pronounced SH, as in "ship" and "ashes." The word ŝafo "sheep" is pronounced "SHAH foh."

Ŭ pairs with vowels to form the diphthongs aŭ (pronounced "OW") and eŭ (pronounced like an exaggerated "OH" in British English). It can also serve as a consonant, W.

An audio pronunciation guide is available from Kurso de Esperanto, which also has more resources on Esperanto grammar and learning Esperanto.