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Donnie Lee Waters

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Jun 20, 1996, 3:00:00 AM6/20/96

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Sorry! Izvinite! Lo Siento! Scusi!
Sorry not to use Esperanto, but that's exactly my problem. :)
I am very interested in learning (it looks fairly easy), but I have no
resources. My library has no books about it except for history or sociology
type books--no self-instruction, and I haven't ever seen a book for it. I
am a foreign language freak, so that's always the first section I go for!
I don't really have too much extra money anyway! So, could someone please
post a list of the very common words (like the, and, or, but) and their
translations into Esperanto? I've been trying to follow along, and I'm
learning a little (especially in the bilingual posts!), but it's pretty
difficult to do this way. Also, how do you pronounce things? And what are
the grammar rules (I love charts and tables...). I don't expect someone to
post all of this of course, but maybe someone could point me to a good
web page? Sincere thanks. :)
DLW

Michiel Meeuwissen

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Jun 20, 1996, 3:00:00 AM6/20/96

to Donnie Lee Waters

A good starting point may be:
ftp://ftp.stack.urc.tue.nl/pub/esperanto/
in the software.dir directory you can find some useful instruction
programms (for a DOS-machine) try e.g. e_kurso.arj (with e_kursoe.ajr)

If you're able to read esperanto, the grammar at:
http://www.e.kth.se/espo/pmeg1/pmeg.htm
if very usefull.

Also look at:
http://wwwtios.cs.utwente.nl/esperanto/

Michiel
--
% Michiel Meeuwissen (meeu...@fys.ruu.nl)
% http://www.fys.ruu.nl/~meeuwiss

Michiel Meeuwissen

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Jun 20, 1996, 3:00:00 AM6/20/96

to Donnie Lee Waters

Michiel Meeuwissen

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Jun 20, 1996, 3:00:00 AM6/20/96

to DLWA...@ulkyvm.louisville.edu

Jiri Baum

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Jun 21, 1996, 3:00:00 AM6/21/96

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Donnie Lee Waters wrote:
> > Sorry! Izvinite! Lo Siento! Scusi!

...

> > post a list of the very common words (like the, and, or, but) and their

...

the - la
and - kaj
or - avx
but - sed

> > Also, how do you pronounce things?

Out in the Real World, Esperanto is a phonetic language,
ie one letter one sound. On the net, half a dozen letters are missing,
so we have to make do with kluges... The most common of which is
a trailing x instead of a supersign (except ux is written vx to reduce
confusion). Esperanto doesn't contain the letter x.

> > And what are
> > the grammar rules (I love charts and tables...).

Hmm, you might be disappointed... There is a table of words
for what/when/where / that/then/there etc, but that's about it...

If you are learning just by reading the text, a useful trick to know
is that words and word-roots can be stuck together to make bigger
words. (But the above-mentioned tablewords are *not* made that way.)

Somebody is going through the word roots often used as affixes
and posting examples, "Words for Net Browsers" the posts are titled.

The textbook example is "malsanulejo":
san' = health
malsan' = illness
malsanul' = patient
malsanulej' = hospital

Grammatical endings:

There are quite a few words without endings: particles, conjunctions,
numbers, pronouns, prepositions, etc; even a few common adverbs.

Practically all words can be changed into any part of speech by
the following endings:

o: noun (by itself, singular nominative or vocative)
j: plural
n: accusative or destination or something else
a: adjective (agrees with noun, ie takes j/n)
e: adverb (takes n to show destination)
': same as o (usually only in poetry; cannot take j/n)

verbs:
is: past
as: present
os: future
i: infinitive
u: imperative/volitive
us: conditional

Participles are handled as vocabulary items rather than sparate endings.

Examples:

La knabo rapide mangxis la kukojn.
The boy quickly ate the cakes.

Kuru, Makulo, kuru!
Run, Spot, run!

> > I don't expect someone to
> > post all of this of course, but maybe someone could point me to a good

There's an e-mail course and a postal course that you can sign up with.
These are free, but I don't remember the addresses of the top of my head.

There's also a 5 or 6 K file floating around with a summary of the grammar.

Hope that helps...

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