Manĝrestaĵo estas sur la plado.

It is a compound word:

• manĝ- = eating / food-related
• rest- = remain, stay left over
• -aĵ- = a concrete thing or result
• -o = noun ending

So manĝrestaĵo is literally something like a food-remnant or a leftover bit of food.

Esperanto very often makes compounds by joining roots into one word.

The basic idea is usually at the end, and the earlier part modifies it. So here:

• restaĵo = a remnant, a leftover thing
• manĝrestaĵo = a food remnant

This is completely normal in Esperanto. English sometimes uses two words, sometimes a hyphen, and sometimes one word; Esperanto usually just combines them directly.

The endings help a lot:

• manĝrestaĵ-o: -o shows it is a noun
• estas: -as shows present tense verb
• sur: preposition
• la: the definite article
• plad-o: -o shows it is a noun

So even before you know every word, the endings tell you the structure of the sentence.

Because Esperanto has no indefinite article.

A bare noun can mean:

• a
• an
• sometimes some

So manĝrestaĵo can naturally mean a leftover or some leftover food, depending on context.

La means the.

So la plado means the plate. This suggests the speaker has a particular plate in mind, or the plate is already known from the context.

If you removed la, sur plado would sound more like on a plate rather than on the plate.

Because this sentence describes location, not movement.

• sur la plado = on the plate
• sur la pladon = onto the plate

In Esperanto, -n is often used after a preposition when there is movement toward a place. Here nothing is moving; the leftover is simply located there.

Esperanto does not have to match English number exactly.

A singular noun can be used when talking about leftover food as one thing or one mass. So manĝrestaĵo is perfectly fine.

If you wanted to emphasize several separate leftover bits, you could say manĝrestaĵoj.

So the difference is:

• manĝrestaĵo = leftover food / a leftover bit
• manĝrestaĵoj = leftovers / several leftover bits

Yes. Esperanto verbs do not change for person or number.

So:

• mi estas = I am
• vi estas = you are
• li estas = he is
• ili estas = they are

That makes Esperanto much simpler than English in this respect.

Yes, to some extent.

The neutral order here is:

• Manĝrestaĵo estas sur la plado.

But you could also say:

• Sur la plado estas manĝrestaĵo.

That version puts more focus on the location. Both are grammatical.

A helpful breakdown is:

• manĝ-res-ta-ĵo

The stress is on the second-to-last syllable, so:

• manĝ-res-TA-ĵo

A couple of important sounds:

• ĝ sounds like the j in judge
• ĵ sounds like the s in measure

So manĝrestaĵo is roughly pronounced like mahnj-res-TAH-zho, but with Esperanto’s clean, steady vowels.