Free Esperanto Course

Lesson Five

Saluton!	Hello! Greetings!
Bonan tagon!	Good day!
Bonan matenon!	Good morning!
Bonan vesperon!	Good evening!
Bonan nokton!	Good night!
Kiel vi fartas?	How are you? (farti = to fare, be)
Bone, dankon. Kaj vi?	Fine, thanks. And you?
Suficxe bone.	So-so. (literally, sufficiently well)
Ne tre bone.	Not so good.
Bonan apetiton!	Enjoy your food! (Bon appetit!)
Je via sano!	To your health!
Same al vi, dankon.	Same to you, thanks.
Gxis la revido.	See you later. (literally, until the re-seeing)
Adiaux.	Goodbye. (Adieu).

Conversation: If two people can talk about themselves for 5 minutes each, then they can easily have at least a 10 minute conversation.

By the end of this 10 lesson course, you should have written down all your vital statistics and personal details (true or false!) and you should know them by heart.

After that, you should be able to give a brief talk about yourself in Esperanto, even if you have to prompt yourself with a 'cheat-sheet' in English.

Let's take a look at an example about John Brown:

Mia nomo estas Johano Bruno. Mi logxas en Usono. Mi komencis lerni Esperanton antaux kvar semajnoj. Gxi estas tre facila lingvo. Mi logxas en domo kun mia edzino kaj niaj infanoj. Ni havas unu filinon kaj du filojn.

Mi havas korespondantojn en tri landoj.

There are 45 very useful words which are a part of a regular system of correlated words (known technically, therefore, as "correlatives"). The meaning of any correlative is the combined meaning of the root (beginning) and the ending: (simple, isn't it?)

ki-	[what]	-o	thing
		-a	kind of, sort of
ti-	[that]	-e	place
		-u	one, or person
i-	[some]	-om	quantity (amount)
		-am	time
cxi-	[every]	-al	reason, for...reason
		-el	manner, in...way
neni-	[no]	-es	one's; person's

examples: tio = that thing, iam = sometime, nenie = nowhere

Typical correlatives and their equally typical English equivalents:

English		Esperanto
how?	(in) what manner	kiel
when?	(at) what time	kiam
where?	(at, in) what place	kie
why?	(for) what reason	kial
how much?	(in) what amount	kiom
always	(at) every time	cxiam
thus	(in) that way, manner	tiel
nobody	no one, no person	neniu
somewhere	(at) some place	ie

Pay attention to the accent: ne-ni-e, ki-u, ti-al, etc.

Note that in English prepositions may be included in the meaning of the Esperanto correlative.

The endings "a" and "u" take the grammar coding "-n" and/or "-j" where appropriate. The ending "o" takes the grammar coding "-n" where appropriate.

If a question contains a question word such as "kio" or "kie", one does not use the yes/no question word "cxu":

What is that?	= Kio estas tio?
Where is that?	= Kie estas tio?

Compare with:

Are you drinking? = Cxu vi trinkas?

Ekzercoj, Leciono Kvin

(Translate into Esperanto)

1. What (thing) is that (thing)?
2. Where is my cup?
3. Which is my book? *
4. Who ate my cake? *
5. When will you eat?
6. Everything is wet.
7. I forgot everything.
8. My pen is somewhere.
9. Then I drank my tea.
10. How much (do) you have? [do is not to be translated]
11. How (does) she run?
12. Why are you smoking? [use simple verb form]
13. Nobody's coffee has milk.
14. How (did) you make it?
15. I am not that-kind-of girl.
16. We have all-kinds-of cups.
17. What kind of sandwich do you have?
18. What did you ask for?
19. Is everyone dry?
20. Who is that?

* Note the difference between kio and kiu.

kio = what thing; e.g., plumo, taso, limonado, etc.
kiu = which thing; e.g., la nigra plumo, la unua domo, etc.
kiu also means who. Kiu vi estas?

Don't forget to mail these exercises to your tutor, with subject: 'FEC ekz 5'.