La kompoŝto estas organika.

to be

Breakdown of La kompoŝto estas organika.

• la: the
• kompoŝto: the compost
• organika: organic

Questions & Answers about La kompoŝto estas organika.

Why is there la at the beginning? In English, I might just say Compost is organic.

La is the definite article, meaning the.

So La kompoŝto estas organika most naturally means The compost is organic, referring to a specific compost pile or batch of compost.

If you mean compost in general, Esperanto often allows you to leave out the article:

• Kompoŝto estas organika. = Compost is organic.

Esperanto has no indefinite article, so there is no separate word for a/an.

Why does kompoŝto end in -o?

In Esperanto, nouns normally end in -o.

So:

• kompoŝto = compost
• the -o tells you it is a noun

This is one of the most basic and helpful patterns in Esperanto: the ending shows the word’s grammatical role.

Why does organika end in -a?

Words ending in -a are adjectives in Esperanto.

So:

• organika = organic

The -a shows that the word describes a noun. Here, organika describes kompoŝto.