Esperanto has no irregular verbs. Not a few, none. The present tense of every verb ends in -as, whoever is doing it: mi lernas, vi lernas, ili lernas, I learn, you learn, they learn. The past ends in -is, the future in -os, and that is more or less the end of the conjugation tables.
That regularity is real, and it changes how you learn Esperanto. The grammar fits on a few pages, so you can spend nearly all your effort on vocabulary and on actually using the language from the first week. Start with the endings that mark nouns, adjectives, verbs and plurals, then the prefixes and suffixes that build new words from old ones, then the accusative, the one part English speakers reliably trip over. At twenty minutes a day, a month gets you introductions, everyday sentences and short written messages.
Who speaks Esperanto, and where
Esperanto has no country. It was published in 1887 by a Warsaw eye doctor writing as Doktoro Esperanto, roughly "Doctor Hopeful", and the pen name became the name of the language. The idea was a neutral second language that belonged to no nation and that anyone could learn. Nobody has counted its speakers properly. Estimates run from tens of thousands of active users to the often-repeated figure of two million, and a small number of people, usually estimated at a thousand or a few thousand, grew up speaking it at home with Esperanto-speaking parents.
What it has instead of a country is a community. The Universala Kongreso, the world congress, has met almost every year since 1905, there are youth gatherings and local clubs, and a long-running hosting network lets speakers put up travelers for free. There's original literature and a large body of translations. The vocabulary comes mostly from Romance languages, with Germanic and Slavic additions, so much of it looks familiar to English speakers from day one.
The grammar in one table
| Ending | Marks | Example |
|---|---|---|
| -o | noun | lingvo, language |
| -a | adjective | facila, easy |
| -e | adverb | facile, easily |
| -j | plural | lingvoj, languages |
| -n | direct object | Mi lernas Esperanton, I'm learning Esperanto |
| -i | infinitive | lerni, to learn |
| -as | present | lernas, learn or learns |
| -is | past | lernis, learned |
| -os | future | lernos, will learn |
| -us | conditional | lernus, would learn |
| -u | command or wish | lernu, learn |
The alphabet has 28 letters, six of them with accents: ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ and ŭ. Each letter has one sound. C is always "ts", j is the "y" in "yes", and the stress always falls on the second-to-last syllable. If your keyboard makes the accents awkward, the widely used x-system lets you type cx for ĉ, gx for ĝ and so on.
Building words from parts
Esperanto's real gift is word-building. A small set of prefixes and suffixes turns one root into a family:
- mal- reverses the meaning: bona (good), malbona (bad); granda (big), malgranda (small)
- -ej- makes a place: lerni (to learn), lernejo (school)
- -ant- makes someone doing it: lernanto (learner)
- -ist- makes a profession: instrui (to teach), instruisto (teacher)
- -in- makes it female: frato (brother), fratino (sister)
- -et- and -eg- make it smaller or bigger: domo (house), dometo (cottage), domego (mansion)
Learn a thousand roots and you can understand several thousand words. The catch is that a word you can build isn't always a word people use, so check your inventions against real texts.
What's hard for English speakers
Not much, but a few things come up again and again. The accusative -n is the big one. English shows the object through word order, so learners forget the ending, and it turns up where you don't expect it, as in greetings: bonan matenon, good morning, has two, because it's short for "I wish you a good morning". Adjective agreement comes next, since Mi havas belajn florojn, I have beautiful flowers, needs both -j and -n on both words. Then there's the table of correlatives, 45 small words such as kio (what), tio (that), ĉio (everything), nenio (nothing), kie (where) and tie (there). It looks like a chore and turns out to be one of the cleverest parts of the language.
Watch for false friends too. Aktuala means current, not actual, and eventuale means possibly.
Saying hello in Esperanto
Saluton is hello and bonan matenon good morning. Kiel vi fartas? asks how you are, and mi fartas bone means I'm fine. Mi nomiĝas Anna is my name is Anna. Dankon means thank you, and bonvolu works as please, followed by a verb: bonvolu sidiĝi, please sit down. Jes and ne are yes and no, pardonu is sorry, and ĉu vi parolas Esperanton? asks whether someone speaks Esperanto. When you leave, say ĝis revido, or simply ĝis.
No country, no school timetable
You won't find Esperanto on a school timetable, in most university catalogs or in a language school's brochure. There's no country behind it and no employer asking for it, so the usual machinery that produces courses never switched on. Most of the material that exists is made by volunteers, which is generous, but quality and structure vary a lot from one source to the next. A self-taught beginner rarely runs short of things to read. The harder thing to find is an order, a route from the endings table to a real conversation.
How to learn Esperanto in four weeks
- Week 1: endings and sounds. The alphabet, the endings table and the greetings. Write ten sentences using -as, -is and -os.
- Week 2: the accusative. Every sentence you write this week has an object. Add -j and -n until they come without thinking.
- Week 3: word-building. Take twenty roots and build families with mal-, -ej-, -ist-, -in- and -et-.
- Week 4: correlatives and real use. Learn the ki- and ti- rows of the table, write a short message about yourself every day, and read something simple written in Esperanto.
How far you can go with Qlango
Qlango's Esperanto course runs from A1 to B2, well beyond this first month. B2 is the level where, in the CEFR's description, you can follow the main ideas of complex texts and talk with enough fluency and spontaneity that conversation works without strain for either side (what each level means). Esperanto has a reputation as one of the easiest languages to learn, and a course that goes that far lets you test it properly. Lessons are short, spaced repetition brings words back before you'd forget them, and the answer modes, picking one of four, building sentences, finding pairs and writing, drill the endings until belajn florojn comes out without a pause. A weekly learning plan, streaks and statistics over weeks, months and years show how far you've come. You can also chat with other learners in the app, with message translation and AI help to write a reply.
When you add the course, you choose the language you learn through, your native language or one you want to strengthen, and it's free to start. Premium adds offline learning and an AI teacher you can ask unlimited questions about grammar and vocabulary, from the accusative to the whole correlative table. The table of languages lists every course and level.
Week one's homework is ten sentences with -as, -is and -os. Open the Esperanto course in Qlango for a short A1 lesson tonight, and the first of the ten can be Mi lernis Esperanton hodiaŭ: I learned Esperanto today.
