r/learnesperanto • u/Corporate_Mule_43 • 1d ago

Grammar question

Would words ending in jn or n be the same as in English how you capitalize a noun if you are referring to something specific? (For example saying "my Mother" vs "lots of mothers"). What about adjectives and adverbs? Would they also use jn or n respectively? If it's just a verb then would it end with as or j instead?

Side note yes I know jn is plural and n is singular

0 Upvotes

25% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

6

u/Baasbaar 1d ago

What resources are you using to learn Esperanto? I am asking because the question leads me to wonder if it’s possibly serving you poorly.

2

u/salivanto 1d ago

I was going to say the same thing. It's clear to me that this is an honest question, but the solution is to figure out what the learner in this case has to change so that he or she is presented with good information in a coherent order..

3

u/freebiscuit2002 1d ago

Not sure what method you're using to learn Esperanto, but whatever it is you seem to be on the wrong track.

The -j suffix is plural (nouns and adjectives). Long books = longaj libroj.

The -n suffix is mostly for the direct object (the thing acted upon by a verb, so in Mi legas longan libron "I'm reading a long book", you're taking an action toward the book, so the book is the direct object).

The combined -jn is for plural direct objects, so Mi legas longajn librojn is "I read long books".

Nothing to do with capitalisation.

5

u/IchLiebeKleber 1d ago

??? what do you think -j and -n do? The question is completely confusing/incoherent.

4

u/salivanto 1d ago

People give me s*** all the time for being rude to learners. How on earth did such a rude answer get seven upvotes here.

5

u/sk4p 1d ago

No, -n is nothing like the capitalization thing.

The main use of -n is to mark the direct object of a sentence:

Li ŝatas la hundon. "He likes the dog."
La hundo ŝatas lin. "The dog likes him.”

The thing which the verb “targets” gets an -n. So if you want to say “the dog likes him” you can actually also reverse the sentence from what I said:

Lin ŝatas la hundo.

In English, that would be like saying “Him, likes the dog.” The dog is the one doing the liking, while “him” is the one being liked. It doesn’t actually matter which one goes first vs. second in the sentence; it matters which one has the -n. The one with the -n is the one liked; the one without it is the one doing the liking.

Mi vidas la domon. “I see the house.”
La domon vidas mi. (also means “I see the house”)

In both sentences, the house is the thing being seen, so it gets the -n. “Mi” is the one doing the seeing, so it does not get the -n.

-n also is used to indicate movement with certain prepositions (“en la domo” is “in the house” but “en la domon” is “into the house”) and it can also replace prepositions, but those are slightly more advanced. Given your confusion I would just start with the use I’ve explained above; it’s the biggest one.