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Esperanto At a Glance


The Alphabet:


A B C Ĉ D E F
G Ĝ H Ĥ I J Ĵ
K L M N O P R
S Ŝ T U Ŭ V Z


Every letter has only one sound and is always pronounced. Accent is always on the next- to-last syllable. All consonants are pronounced as in English except:

C as "ts" in "bits"

Ĉ as "ch" in "church"

G as in "get"

Ĝ as "j" in "jet"

H as in "hat"

Ĥ as "ch" in "loch"

J as "y" in "yes"

Ĵ as "s" in "measure"

R is trilled as in Spanish. Think of señorita or burrito.

S as in "said"

Ŝ as "sh" in "shed"

Ŭ as "w" in "water"

Vowels are always pure, never diphthongs as is common in English. They are pronounced as follows:



A as in "father"

E as in "get"

I as in "machine"

O as in "mote"

U as "oo" in "boot"



The parts of speech are formed by adding endings to root words.

O is the noun ending
     instruisto (teacher)
adjectives end in A
     new = nova
J is added to form plurals direct object adds N
Inteligentaj personoj lernas la internacian lingvon.

(Intelligent people learn the international language.)

Esperanto havas facilajn regulojn.

(Esperanto has easy rules.)

The ending of an adjective always agrees with the ending of the noun
that it modifies.


Verb endings


Infinitive Present Past Future Imperative Conditional
I AS IS OS U US
vidi vidas vidis vidos vidu vidus
to see sees saw will see see! would see

The ending is the same regardless of number or gender.


Adverbs
end in E.

    e.g.  libere (freely)


Numbers :


1 unu 5 kvin 9 naŭ
2 du 6 ses 10 dek
3 tri 7 sep 100 cent
4 kvar 8 ok 1000 mil

Examples:

12 dek du

278 ducent sepdek ok

by Robert L. Read
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