La katido miaŭas nokte.

Katido means kitten, while kato means cat.

It is built from:

• kat- = cat
• -id- = offspring, young one
• -o = noun ending

So katido literally means young cat. This is a very common Esperanto word-building pattern.

The ending -as marks the present tense.

So:

• miaŭi = to meow
• miaŭas = meows / is meowing

Esperanto verbs always show tense with a fixed ending:

• -as = present
• -is = past
• -os = future
• -us = conditional
• -u = command / wish

The ending -e marks an adverb.

Here, nokte means at night or during the night. It tells us when the action happens.

Compare:

• nokto = night
• nokte = at night, nightly

So nokte is not a noun here; it is an adverb describing the verb miaŭas.

Yes. En la nokto can also mean in the night / during the night, but nokte is shorter and very natural for general time expressions.

A rough comparison:

• nokte = at night, by night, nightly
• en la nokto = in the night, during the night

In many everyday sentences, Esperanto prefers the simple adverb form when possible.

There is no direct object here, so no accusative -n is needed.

In La katido miaŭas nokte:

• la katido is the subject
• miaŭas is the verb
• nokte is an adverb of time

Since miaŭi is an intransitive verb here, nothing receives the action directly.

La is the Esperanto definite article, meaning the.

So la katido means the kitten. Esperanto uses only one article, la, for all genders and numbers.

Whether English would say the kitten, this kitten, or sometimes just a kitten depends on context, but grammatically la specifically marks it as definite in Esperanto.

Yes, Esperanto word order is fairly flexible.

The neutral order here is:

• La katido miaŭas nokte.

But you could also say:

• Nokte la katido miaŭas.

That puts more emphasis on nokte. Because Esperanto uses endings to show grammar, word order often changes for focus or style rather than basic meaning.

It is pronounced approximately mee-AU-as.

A few useful points:

• mi sounds like mee
• aŭ is a diphthong, roughly like ow in cow
• the stress in Esperanto normally falls on the second-to-last syllable

So mi-aŭ-as has stress on aŭ.

No. They are different.

• -id- means offspring or young one
• -et- means small or somewhat less intense

So:

• katido = kitten, young cat
• kateto = little cat, small cat, cute cat

Sometimes both could refer to something similar in real life, but the meanings are not the same.

Yes. Esperanto often turns sounds into verbs very naturally.

So:

• miaŭi = to meow
• boj i = to bark
• bleki = to bleat

This is completely normal. The verb ending -i makes the root into an infinitive, just like to meow in English.