Lesson 4 - Adjectives
Adjectives are the words that are used to describe properties of nouns.
Examples of English adjectives are big and small. Esperanto
adjectives can be derived from roots by attaching the ending -a to
them.
Here are a few examples of Esperanto articles:
akva (aquatic)
blanka (white)
verda (green)
granda (big)
nova (new)
Adjectives can be used either in front or behind the nouns they qualify. So,
a white car can be translated as either blanka auto or auto
blanka. However it is much more common to put adjectives in front of
nouns.
Remember that Esperanto adjectives have the ending -a while nouns have
the ending -o. In many languages this difference in form is not always
(sometimes never) made; in English the word green can be an adjective
or a noun, but not so in Esperanto:
La auto estas verda = The car is green.
Verdo estas koloro = Green is a colour.
As in for example French and German there is concordance in Esperanto
between nouns and adjectives with respect to number. This means that if a noun
is singular, the adjectives that decribe the noun are used in the singular
form too. And if the noun is plural the adjectives must also show a plural
ending. Just as with nouns the plural of adjectives is formed by attaching
-j:
La verda automobilo = The green automobile.
La verdaj automobiloj = The green automobiles.
And just as in French (but not in German) this rule holds for adjectives that
are used attributively (i.e. directly in front of or after a noun, as
in the previous example) as well as for adjectives that are used
predicatively (i.e. coupled to a noun with a copula like to be
or to seem):
La automobilo estas verda = The automobile is green.
La automobiloj estas verdaj = The automobiles are green.
Instead of creating new words by combining two nouns, it is also quite common
in Esperanto to use a combination of an adjective and a noun (as often done
in Slavic languages). So for the English water-plant we could use
either akvoplanto or akva planto. In English there happens to
be an exact equivalent of akva planto, namely aquatic plant, but
in Esperanto this method can universally be applied because any root can be
converted to an adjective by adding -a to it. For garden plant
we could for instance use ghardena planto instead of
ghardenplanto. The meaning would be the same, but keep in mind that in
the plural both parts of ghardena planto would get a plural suffix
(ghardenaj plantoj) while in ghardenplanto only the last part
would be pluralized (ghardenplantoj).
Vocabulary
| Esperanto | English |
|---|
| akva | aquatic, water- |
| blanka | white |
| granda | big, large |
| kato | a cat |
| koloro | a colour |
| kreski | to grow (cf. crescendo) |
| lago | a lake |
| multa | much |
| multaj | many |
| nigra | black |
| nova | new |
| planto | a plant |
| sur | on |
| verda | green (cf. verdure) |
Exercise 4-1
Translate into English:
1. La nigra kato sidis sur la tablo. 2. En la lago kreskas multaj akvaj
plantoj. 3. La nova auto estos nigra. 4. Ghardenaj plantoj kreskas en
ghardenoj. 5. Multaj pomoj estis verdaj. 6. La tero en la ghardeno estas
nigra. 7. Li loghas tie chi, en la nova domo. 8. La granda tablo en la
ghardeno estis blanka. 9. Shi volis sidi en la granda auto. 10. La koloro
estas verdo.
Exercise 4-2
Translate into Esperanto:
1. In the lake (there)* was much water. 2. I want to live in a big
new house. 3. The black cat and the white cat are sitting in the garden. 4.
There are many water-plants in the lake. 5. In a big lake there is much water.
6. The plants were growing in the new garden. 7. A big man is sitting in the
car. 8. There is a cat sitting on the table, and it is black. 9. The table is
white and the cat is black. 10. There are many apple-trees in the garden.
*
In Esperanto tie is only used for referring to a place that is some
distance away or that was previously mentioned. In sentences like these the
English there is not translated. In this case there is is simply
estas in Esperanto.
Key to the exercises