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Congratulations on your desire to learn Esperanto!

2. "Kurso de Esperanto" by Karlo Pereira
Basic Esperanto Course, interactive with sound

Download from 
http://www.cursodeesperanto.com.br/bazo/elshuto.php?en

Help for the lessons 

Lesson # 0. 
To read before sending the exercises 
from the lessons of the course.

A little bit of grammar.

Description of some very simple rules of grammar, easy 
to remember, always to be applied, without exceptions. 

The adjectives finish in " - a" (it can be - aj - an - ajn) 
The substantives finish in " - o" (it can be - oj - on - ojn) 
Adverbs: The ending -e is equivalent to "ly" in English. 

Substantives, nouns: Generally two substantives are not 
written together (-o). Possibly one is a substantive (-o) and 
the others are adjectives (-a). Adjectives are qualities. (-a) 
The names of things are substantives. (-o) 

Verbs have only 6 endings:
Present tense finishes in "-as". 
Past tense finishes in "-is". 
Future tense finishes in "-os". 
Conditional finishes in "-us". 
Imperative finishes in "-u". 
Infinitive finishes in "-i".

Verbs: Generally only simple verbs are used. Never use  
together two verbs finished in -as, -is, -os. 

The article "the" is translated as "la". "La" is the only 
article in Esperanto. The article "la" never changes, 
does not receive endings. 

The articles "a", "an" are never translated, they aren't needed.

"oni", somebody, some, indeterminated. It does not replace 
the English "a" or "an". It is not used in any of the answers 
of the lessons in this course. 

Before completing a lesson, please read the part concerning 
that lesson, in this page, farther down. 

Remember that if the question is plural, the answer is also 
plural. If the question is in past tense, the answer is also in 
past tense. If the substantive is plural (-oj), the adjective is 
also plural (-aj). If the question begins with a capital letter 
and ends with a period, the answer also begins with a 
capital letter and ends with a period.

After finishing the exercises of each lesson please review all 
the answers. Maybe the answer to one of the last exercises 
clarifies a mistake made at the beginning. Then review the 
whole message. Be sure that you did not write "Espernato" 
or " instruito" instead of " Esperanto" or "instruisto". 

I do not recommend the use of dictionaries until the end of 
the two first courses. Following the courses you will learn 
more words, faster, and with more retention. After the courses 
the dictionary will be necessary to extend your word provision. 


After finishing several lessons, please tell me how long 
took you to study each lesson.


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Help for Lesson 1

Remember that all endings are very important.
All the letters have to be well pronounced.

To avoid repeating names, we use pronouns:

mi = I, me
vi = you
li, sxi, gxi = he, she, it 
oni   (indeterminate)
ni = we
ili = they

We add "a" to the pronouns to make the possesives. 
They finish with "a" and behave like adjectives.

mia = my, mine
via = yours
lia = his
sxia = her, hers
gxia = its
nia = our
ilia = their


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Help for 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.


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Help for 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.

edzo = husband
edzino  = wife 
gustumi = to try some food
teatraĵo = a theater play
kun = with (together, in company)
loĝas = to reside, to live in a place
domo = house (like in the word "domestic)
bildkarto = bildo + karto = a post card
ŝati = to be satisfied 


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Help for 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) where, place 
u = person, who 
al = why, reason, because
el = how, manner
es = whose, 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.

More about Correlatives:
    by Sylvan Zaft     by Donald Harlow
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Help for Lesson 6


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Help for 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.

herbo = grass
meti = to put

Please send the exercises from pages 4, 8, and 15, 
all in one message.


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Help for Lesson 8

disdoni = to distribute 
eleganta = elegant 
kolego = colleague
najbaro; najbarino = neighbor

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Help for Lesson 10

tramo = a tramway or a boat for public transportation.

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Best wishes, 

Enrique 
From Fremont, California, USA.


Lernua   Steps to learn and use Esperanto

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,   October  24,  2010