La sufloro staras apud la kuliso.

La is the definite article, meaning the.

It appears twice because there are two separate noun phrases:

• la sufloro = the prompter
• la kuliso = the wing / flat / stage scenery

In Esperanto, each noun phrase takes its own article if it is definite. You do not use one la for the whole sentence.

Because -o is the normal noun ending in Esperanto.

So:

• sufloro = a noun
• kuliso = a noun

This is one of the most regular features of Esperanto: you can usually tell a word’s part of speech by its ending.

-as marks the present tense.

So staras means stands or is standing.

In Esperanto, all present-tense verbs end in -as:

• mi staras = I stand / I am standing
• li staras = he stands / he is standing
• ili staras = they stand / they are standing

The verb does not change depending on the subject.

Stari means to stand or to be standing, so it describes a specific physical position.

Esti just means to be.

So:

• La sufloro estas apud la kuliso = The prompter is by the wing.
• La sufloro staras apud la kuliso = The prompter is standing by the wing.

The version with staras gives more information.

Apud means beside, next to, or by.

It shows that something is close to something else, usually physically nearby.

So apud la kuliso means beside the wing / scenery piece.

It is a preposition, so it introduces a location relationship.

There is no -n here because apud la kuliso is a prepositional phrase showing location, not a direct object.

In Esperanto, -n is mainly used for:

1. the direct object
2. direction toward something in some expressions

Here the meaning is static location: the prompter is standing beside the wing. So kuliso stays without -n.

A learner-friendly contrast:

• La sufloro staras apud la kuliso. = The prompter is standing beside the wing.
• La sufloro vidas la kulison. = The prompter sees the wing.

In the second sentence, kulison gets -n because it is the direct object of vidas.

Not necessarily.

In Esperanto, ordinary nouns are not automatically grammatically masculine or feminine in the way they are in some languages. Sufloro means prompter, and by itself it does not have to tell you the person’s sex.

If you specifically want to mark a female person, Esperanto can use -in-:

• suflorino = female prompter

But the basic form sufloro is the general dictionary form.

Yes. Esperanto word order is fairly flexible because grammar is shown by endings and prepositions.

The normal, neutral order here is:

• La sufloro staras apud la kuliso.

But other orders are possible for emphasis, for example:

• Apud la kuliso staras la sufloro.

That still means basically the same thing, but it puts more attention on the location first.

In Esperanto, the stress is almost always on the second-to-last syllable.

So here:

• la su-FLO-ro
• STA-ras
• a-PUD
• la ku-LI-so

A rough pronunciation guide for an English speaker:

• sufloro ≈ soo-FLO-ro
• staras ≈ STA-ras
• apud ≈ a-POOD
• kuliso ≈ koo-LEE-so

Also, Esperanto spelling is very regular: words are pronounced much more consistently than in English.

Kuliso is a theater word. It usually refers to stage scenery at the side, such as a wing, flat, or side scenic piece.

So in a theater context, apud la kuliso means the prompter is standing beside that stage structure.

Depending on the translation shown to the learner, English might use different words, but the Esperanto word clearly belongs to stage/theater vocabulary.