Overview of Esperanto Grammar

Esperanto is an artificial language created by L.L. Zamenhof in the 1880s. It was intended to be a universal language, and so it was constructed to be completely regular and easy to learn. As the vocabulary is heavily influenced by Latin, it should be easy for speakers of Romance languages to parse simple Esperanto phrases and sentences after studying the basic grammar, parts of speech, and verb forms.

Nouns

All singular nouns end in -o. The basic form of a noun is male or neuter, while the suffix -in- denotes a feminine (e.g. patro "parent, father," patrino "mother"). The prefix vir- (from viro "man") can be used to explicitly denote maleness (e.g. knabo "child," virknabo "boy," knabino "girl"). It is not necessary to mark gender when it is clear from context (e.g. Emily estas anglo "Emily is English," not Emily estas anglino "Emily is an Englishwoman").

Adjectives

All adjectives end in -a. Adjectives generally appear before the noun they modify (e.g. bona knabo "good boy").

Cases

Esperanto uses cases, which clarify the parts of speech in a sentence. The suffix -n denotes an object (e.g. la knabo kompras panon "the boy buys bread"). The adjective is also modified (e.g. la patro havas bonan filion "the father has a good son"). Because the suffix denotes whether a noun is a subject or an object, word order is not as important as in English, and one can switch words around without changing the sentence's meaning (e.g. la instruisto vendas librojn "the teacher sells books," librojn la instruisto vendas "the teacher sells books").

Plurals

Plurals are formed by adding the suffix -j. Nouns and adjectives must agree in number (e.g. bona knabo "good boy," bonaj knaboj "good boys"). The -j comes before the -n in plural objects (e.g. la patro havas filiojn "the father has sons").

Articles

There is only one definite article in Esperanto: la "the." There is no indefinite article ("a, an"), but it is implied by the context (e.g. la feliĉa patrino "the happy mother," feliĉa patrino "a happy mother").

Verbs

Verbs are not conjugated differently for each person, only for tense. The infinitive form has the suffix -i; e.g. esti "to be," vendi "to sell." The present tense has the suffix -as; e.g. estas "am/is/are," vendas "sell/sells." The past tense has the suffix -is; e.g estis "was/were," vendis "sold." The future tense has the suffix -os; e.g. estos "will be," vendos "will sell."