Enrique's pages             Español   English Dear student, Congratulations on your desire to learn Esperanto! 2. Help for the lessons  "Kurso deEsperanto" by Karlo Pereira Basic Esperanto Course, interactive with sound Correcting the lessons from the course, I found 3 kinds of mistakes: 1. The course is missing some information. 2. The student fails to pay enough attention while going thru the lesson. 3. The student goes too fast thru the test, and doesn't review it. To avoid these mistakes 1. I will provide more information for each lesson, after these comments. I am still working on this. 2. Please be attentive while studying the lesson. I believe you should go thru the lesson only once, but trying hard not to get distracted. Read here the concerning text for that lesson before starting to make the test. 3. After finishing each test, read again everything you wrote, and make sure there aren't mistakes, mainly that kind of mistakes that happen when you don't copy all the letters in a word, or some letters get in the wrong sequence, because some times the fingers go faster than the brain, like writing "Espernato", "Esperatno", or "Espranto" instead of "Esperanto". Maybe you answered a plural question with a singular. Remember that both the adjective and the substantive are plural. Or maybe you answered a past tense question with a present or future tense. Remember verbs endings. (past: -is, present: -as, future: -os) I do read several times every message before sending it. After finishing several lessons, please tell me how long takes you to study each lesson. - - - - - Lesson 1 Remember that all endings are very important. All the letters have to be well pronounced. All the ... ... adjectives end in "a" ("aj" when plural) ... substantives end in "o" ("oj" when plural) ... verbs present tense end in "as". ... verbs past tense end in "is". ... verbs future tense end in "os". The article "the" is translated as "la". "La" is the only article in Esperanto. The articles a, an, aren't translated. They aren't needed. When the substantive is plural (ends in "oj"), the adjective is also plural (ends in "aj"). The article "la" never changes. Generally you will not have to write 2 substantives one after the other. Probably, one of them should be an adjective. Thus one of them will finish with "a" and the other will finish with "o". Names of things are substantives. (-o) Qualities are adjectives. (-a) To avoid repeating names, we use pronouns: mi = I vi = you li, sxi, gxi = he, she, it oni ni = we ili = they We add "a" to the pronouns to make the possesives. They finish with "a" and behave like adjectives. mia = mine via = yours lia = his sxia = her, hers gxia = its nia = our ilia = their - - - - - Lessons 2 and 3 The article "the" is traduced as "la". "la" doesn't take any other ending. The articles "a", "an" don't have a translation. They aren't needed. Transitive verbs are action verbs. They require a direct object to complete its meaning in the sentence. This direct object always takes the ending "-n", called "accusative" in Esperanto. If the direct object has noun(s) and adjective(s), all of them take the "-n" ending. If they are plural, all of them end in "jn". Substantive (accusative) ends in -on. Substantive (accusative plural) ends in -ojn. Adjective (accusative) ends in -an. Adjective (accusative, plural) ends in -ajn. Numbers don't take accusative nor plural. Sentences with the verb "esti" (estas, estis, estos) never take the accusative ending. Words that modify verbs, are adverbs, they end in -e. (equivalent to English "ly") - - - ¿When do we have to use the "-n" ending? Transitive verbs In Esperanto, word order is not very important. The following 6 sentences have the same meaning: Petro batas Johanon. Petro Johanon batas. Johanon batas Petro. Johanon Petro batas. Batas Petro Johanon. Batas Johanon Petro. ¿Who hits WHOM? In English there are very few words that act like the Esperanto accusative. Some of them are: me, him, her, them, whom With verbs, these words are used in English in the same way that the accusative is used in Esperanto. But they are also used in English after prepositions and that is not the case in Esperanto. This happens only with these few words in English. In Esperanto we have to use the ending "-n" with all the transitive verbs ... always. Petro batas Johanon. Peter hits John. Johanon batas Petro. Not an easy translation. Maybe: "John is being hit by Peter" Peter has a book. What does Peter have? Petro havas libron. ¿Kion havas Petro? But ... Kiu havas libron? Who has a book? If the sentence needs -n, the question also needs -n. - - - Intransitive verbs refer back to the subject. They don't take direct object. "estas" is an intransitive verb. It never requires "-n". Vi "estas" lernanto. You are a student. lerni = to learn lernanto = somebody who learns Later we will see other ways to use the "-n" ending. - - - - - Lesson 4 Pronouns: May use the accusative ending. They don't take the "-j" ending for plural. mi, vi, sxi, li, gxi, oni, ni, vi, ili. Possessives: They may take the accusative and/or plural endings. mia, via, sxia, lia, gxia, onia, nia, via, ilia. "gustumi" = to try some food "teatrajxo" = a theater play - - - - - Lesson 5 Correlatives: The correlatives form a table made of 5 beginnings times 9 endings, making a total of 45 correlatives. In theory you have to learn the meanings of these 14 parts. But remember that in practice you will not use all of them. But it is always good to learn the meaning of these parts. Beginnings: As you can see next to "ki" and "ti", English also have this words that start with the same sound, and also have corresponding endings. ki = question word (who, what, where, when, how) ti = showing word (that, there, then, those, thus) cxi = every, all neni = negation, none, nobody, nothing, never i = individual, indeterminate, any, some, something Endings: o = (substantive) a thing, something a = (adjective) what kind, that kind e = (adverb) place u = person, which al = why, because el = reason es = possession om = quantity (kiom = how many) am = time (kiam = when; tiam = then) tio = that cxi tio = this The complete table of correlatives is at http://esperantofre.com/eeo/EoDktA/KorKurA3.htm#kore Read the whole table once, but don't try to memorize it. - - - - - Lesson 6 - - - - - Lesson 7 Accusative to show direction: Karlo promenis en la parko. Charles walked in the park. Charles was all the time within the park. Karlo promenis en la parkon. Charles walked into the park. The accusative ending in "parkon" shows that Charles wasn't in the park, but walked into it. - - - - - Best wishes, Enrique Fremont, California, Usono K1h   Como usar el curso K2h   Ayudas para las lecciones K1a   How to use the course K2a   Help with the lessons G1h   3 capítulos de "Gerda Malaperis", traducción G1hx   3 capítulos de "Gerda Malaperis", traducción, x G1a   3 chapters from "Gerda Malaperis", translation G1ax   3 chapters from "Gerda Malaperis", translation, x Updated by Enrique,   April  9,  2008