Lesson 14 - More about the accusative case (2)

In the previous lesson I mentioned that the accusative case can be used to replace any preposition. In practice this method is chiefly used in cases where it is not clear which preposition we should use, for instance when we want to indicate a certain time:

Mi iros al li la sepan (horon)^* = I shall go to him at seven (o'clock).
Ni loghos tie chi tri monatojn = We shall live here for three months.
Mi estis tie dimanchon = I shall be there on Sunday.
Mia onklo mortis januaron = My uncle died in January.
Kio okazos tiun chi semajnon? = What will happen this week?

^* La unua = one o'clock, la dua = two o'clock, et cetera. The word horo is usually omitted.

The fact that in each of the English versions of these sentences a different preposition is used (or no preposition at all), illustrates that with respect to time the choice of a preposition is more or less arbitrary. In such cases the Esperanto accusative offers a neat solution.

Often you will encounter sentences in which adverbs of time are used that can be derived from nouns by changing the ending -o into -e. For instance:

Autune multaj birdoj flugas al Afriko = In autumn many birds fly to Africa.
Dimanche Johano ne laboras = On Sundays John does not work.

The difference with indicating time by using a noun in the accusative case is that the adverbs indicate a repetitive action. That is, the birds fly to Africa in every autumn and John does not work on any Sunday.

Since you now know how to use the names of days and months in Esperanto, this is a good moment to give you the complete lists of the days and months in this language:

**La tagoj de la semajno**
Esperanto	English
dimancho	Sunday
lundo	Monday
mardo	Tuesday
merkredo	Wednesday
jhaudo	Thursday
vendredo	Friday
sabato	Saturday

**La monatoj de la jaro**
Esperanto	English
januaro	January
februaro	February
marto	March
aprilo	April
majo	May
junio	June
julio	July
augusto	August
septembro	September
oktobro	October
novembro	November
decembro	December

Note that the names of days and months are usually not written with a capital in Esperanto.

The accusative case has another important function in Esperanto. It is often used with units of measurement:

La arbo estas dudek metrojn alta = The tree is twenty metres high.
La vojo estas dek metrojn largha = The road is ten metres wide.
La hundo pezas dek du kilogramojn = The dog weighs twelve kilos.

In the last sentence of these examples du kilogramojn is in fact the direct object, so we would expect an accusative case anyway. And by analogy we could consider for example esti alta in the first example as a transitive verb with dudek metrojn as its direct object. After all, pezi is just a shorter way of saying esti peza and we could actually replace esti alta with the verb alti, which is a legitimate Esperanto word (La arbo altas dudek metrojn).

Sometimes it is better to use a preposition instead of the accusative case in order to avoid unclear (or even ambiguous) sentences. If none of the other prepositions seem to be appropriate, but using the accusative would result in an unclear sentence (or if you just prefer to reserve the accusative to denote the direct object), you can always use the preposition je. This is a kind of default preposition which has no specific meaning. It can be used instead of any other preposition or instead of the accusative (even when this is used to indicate the direct object). Here are a few examples of the use of je:

Mi vendos je lundo = I shall come on Monday.
Ni vizitos lin je tiu chi semajno = We shall vizit him this week.
La strato estas longa je du kilometroj = The street is two kilometres long.
Mi volas veti je tiu hundo = I want to bet on that dog.

**Vocabulary**
Esperanto	English
alta	high, tall (cf. altitude)
largha	broad, wide
longa	long
kilogramo	a kilogramme
kilometro	a kilometre
metro	metre
morti	to die (cf. mortal)
pezi	to weigh (intr.)
semajno	a week
strato	a street
veti	to bet
vojo	a road, a way

Exercise 14-1

Translate into English:

1. Li staris duonan horon en sia ghardeno. 2. La pomoj pezas unun kilogramon. 3. La piroj pezas je du kilogramoj. 4. Chu vi venos lundon au mardon? 5. Mi chiam venas lunde. 6. Tiun chi vintron ni vojaghis al Afriko. 7. Li chiam laboris sabate, sed tiun chi sabaton li ne laboros. 8. La vojo antau mia domo estas largha tridek metrojn. 9. Ghi estas ses kilometrojn longa. 10. Chu vi iam vetas je hundoj? 11. Ne, mi vetas je nenio. 12. Morgau mia onklo iros Usonon. 13. Tiu chi vojo longas (estas longa) dek tri kilometrojn. 14. Shia patro diris ke li venos merkredon. 15. Mi donos al li la monon vendredon. 16. Vendrede mi chiam vizitas mian onklon. 17. La auto kiun ni achetis hierau estas longa nur tri kaj duonan metron. 18. La prezidento mortis decembron. 19. Ni loghas en strato kiu estas du kilometrojn longa. 20. Chiuj domoj en nia strato estas alta dek kvar metrojn. 21. Auguston mi vojaghos al la nordo de Europo. 22. Li kuris rapide sian patron. 23. Chiu tablo estas peza je dek kilogramo. 24. Ili estas larghaj unu metron kaj longaj unu kaj duonan metron. 25. La shranko kiun ni achetis sabaton, estas alta du metrojn.

Exercise 14-2

Translate into Esperanto:

1. That road is just two kilometres long. 2. He said that he would come on Sunday or Monday. 3. This Sunday we shall have to work in the garden. 4. We have been there for two weeks. 4. The table in that room is six metres long. 5. His uncle is very heavy (peza); he weighs one hundred kilos. 6. He is just one and a half metre tall. 7. At one o'clock I have to go home. 8. I cannot work till two o'clock; I have to visit my uncle at three. 9. He jumped two metres high^*. 10. I have bought a table that is three metres long. 11. They only sell portions that weigh half a kilo. 12. Which table is three metres long? 13. All the tables that we sell are just two metres long. 14. The road to my house is two and a half kilometre. 15. On Thursday we shall visit the new museum. 16. I cannot come then; I must work on Thursdays. 17. We betted that he could not run for two hours. 18. He has lived for six months in the USA. 19. I had to talk to his father for an hour. 20. That black dog weighs twenty kilos.

^* You should note that high is an adverb here, even though the suffix -ly is missing for some reason. In Esperanto this irregularity does not exist and you should translate high not with alta but with alte.

Key to the exercises