Paco gravas por la socio.

They tell you the basic grammar of the sentence:

• -o = noun
  
  • paco = peace
  • socio = society
• -as = present tense verb
  
  • gravas = is important / matters

So even before translating, you can see the structure:

• paco = a noun
• gravas = the verb
• socio = another noun, here inside a prepositional phrase

This is one of the biggest advantages of Esperanto: the endings make sentence structure much easier to recognize.

Because Esperanto often uses a verb where English might use either a verb or an adjective.

• grava = important
• gravi = to be important, to matter
• gravas = is important, matters

So:

• Paco gravas por la socio.
• Paco estas grava por la socio.

Both are correct and very close in meaning.

The first uses the verb gravi directly.
The second uses the adjective grava with estas.

English learners often expect is important to require estas grava, but Esperanto also allows the simpler verb gravas.

Because paco is being used in a general, abstract sense: peace as a concept.

In Esperanto, abstract nouns often appear without an article when speaking generally:

• Paco gravas. = Peace is important.
• Libereco gravas. = Freedom is important.

If you said la paco, that would usually mean a specific peace:

• a particular peaceful situation
• a specific peace agreement
• a known peace already mentioned in context

So here paco without la means peace in general.

Here la socio means society as a whole, in a general collective sense.

English often says just society with no article, but Esperanto commonly uses la in this kind of meaning:

• la socio = society as an institution or whole
• la registaro = the government
• la publiko = the public

Without la, socio would more likely mean a society or some society, not society in general.

So:

• por la socio = for society
• por socio = for a society

Por means for, and here it shows who benefits or in relation to whom something is important.

So gravas por la socio means:

• is important for society
• matters for society
• is significant from the point of view of society

This is a very common pattern:

• Tio gravas por mi. = That is important for me.
• Edukado gravas por infanoj. = Education is important for children.

A learner may wonder about al, because English also says important to society. Esperanto sometimes uses different prepositions from English, and here por is the natural choice.

Because there is no direct object here.

The verb gravi does not take a direct object in this sentence.
Instead, por la socio is a prepositional phrase.

A few key points:

• paco is the subject
• gravas is the verb
• por la socio tells us for whom or in relation to whom peace is important

Since por is a preposition, la socio does not need -n here.

So this is not:

• subject + verb + direct object

It is:

• subject + verb + prepositional phrase

Yes. That is completely correct.

The two versions are very similar:

• Paco gravas por la socio.
• Paco estas grava por la socio.

The first uses the verb gravi.
The second uses esti + adjective.

In practice, both are natural. Esperanto often gives you both options:

• La afero gravas.
• La afero estas grava.

They mean almost the same thing. A learner should simply get used to the fact that Esperanto sometimes prefers a simple verb where English uses to be + adjective.

Yes, to some extent.

The normal, neutral order is:

• Paco gravas por la socio.

But Esperanto word order is somewhat flexible, especially for emphasis. For example, you might also see:

• Por la socio paco gravas.

That could emphasize for society.

Still, for learners, the original order is the clearest and most neutral. Since there is no accusative -n here, changing the order too much can make things feel less straightforward, even if the meaning is still understandable from context.

A helpful pronunciation guide is:

PA-tso GRA-vas por la so-TSI-o

A few details:

• paco = PA-tso
  • c in Esperanto is always ts
• gravas = GRA-vas
  • g is always hard, like in go
• socio = so-TSI-o
  • again, c = ts
• Stress is always on the second-to-last syllable:
  • PA-co
  • GRA-vas
  • so-CI-o

That regular stress system makes Esperanto pronunciation much more predictable than English.

It can match either one, depending on how natural you want the English to sound.

• Paco gravas por la socio. can be understood as:
  • Peace is important for society.
  • Peace matters for society.

In many cases, gravi covers both ideas.

So when you see gravas, it is useful to think of a meaning range like this:

• is important
• matters
• has importance

That will help you avoid trying to force a single exact English equivalent every time.