La pedalo turnas la ĉenon.

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Breakdown of La pedalo turnas la ĉenon.

• turni: to turn something
• ĉeno: the chain
• pedalo: the pedal

Questions & Answers about La pedalo turnas la ĉenon.

Why do pedalo and ĉenon end in -o?

In Esperanto, -o is the noun ending.

So:

• pedalo = pedal
• ĉeno = chain

Almost all basic nouns end in -o. This makes it easy to recognize what kind of word you are looking at.

Notice that ĉenon still has the noun ending -o; it just also has an extra -n after it for another grammatical reason.

Why does ĉenon have an extra -n, but pedalo does not?

The -n marks the direct object of the verb — the thing being acted on.

In La pedalo turnas la ĉenon:

• la pedalo = the pedal → the thing doing the action
• la ĉenon = the chain → the thing being turned

So ĉenon has -n because the chain is receiving the action.

This is called the accusative ending.

Why is the verb turnas and not turns or something else?