La pojno malpli doloras, ekde kiam li komencis porti bandaĝon.

La is the definite article, meaning the.

Here, la pojno refers to a specific wrist, not just wrists in general. In context, it means the wrist—probably the person’s wrist that has been hurting.

If you said just pojno, it would sound less natural here, because Esperanto usually uses la when a specific thing is being talked about.

Pojno means wrist.

A learner might confuse it with:

• mano = hand
• brako = arm
• kubuto = elbow

So la pojno is specifically the wrist.

In Esperanto, dolori is a normal verb meaning to hurt or to ache.

So:

• La pojno doloras = The wrist hurts
• La pojno estas dolora = The wrist is painful

Both are possible, but doloras is more direct and more natural in a sentence like this.

Malpli means less.

So:

• doloras = hurts
• malpli doloras = hurts less

This is the normal way to express a reduced degree. Esperanto often uses pli and malpli very straightforwardly:

• pli doloras = hurts more
• malpli doloras = hurts less

Yes. La pojno malpli doloras and La pojno doloras malpli are both understandable.

The difference is mainly one of emphasis and style:

• La pojno malpli doloras puts malpli a little more prominently before the verb.
• La pojno doloras malpli may sound a little more natural to some learners because it resembles English word order.

Esperanto word order is fairly flexible as long as the meaning stays clear.

Ekde kiam means since in the sense of since the time when.

Literally:

• ekde = starting from
• kiam = when

So ekde kiam li komencis porti bandaĝon means since he started wearing a bandage.

It points to a starting moment in time, and the idea continues from that point until now.

Yes, often de kiam can also be used.

Very roughly:

• de kiam = since / from when
• ekde kiam = since, with a slightly stronger sense of starting from that moment onward

In many real sentences, the difference is small. Ekde can feel a bit more explicit about the starting point.

Because komenci means to begin/start, and the thing being started is another action.

So:

• komencis = started
• porti = to wear / to carry

Together:

• li komencis porti bandaĝon = he started wearing a bandage

This is very common in Esperanto:

• Mi volas iri. = I want to go.
• Ŝi povas naĝi. = She can swim.
• Li komencis porti bandaĝon. = He started wearing a bandage.

The second verb stays in the infinitive form: porti.

The -n marks the direct object.

Here, porti means to wear, and the thing being worn is bandaĝo:

• bandaĝo = bandage
• bandaĝon = bandage as the direct object

So:

• li portas bandaĝon = he is wearing a bandage

The -n is there because the bandage is the thing affected by the verb porti.

Yes—porti can mean both carry and wear.

That is normal in Esperanto. The same verb is used for having something on your body as well as carrying something.

Examples:

• Li portas sakon. = He is carrying a bag.
• Li portas ĉapelon. = He is wearing a hat.
• Li komencis porti bandaĝon. = He started wearing a bandage.

So here the meaning is clearly wear, not carry.

Esperanto often uses the simple past -is where English might use either:

• started
• has started
• sometimes even a larger time expression like has been ... since

So komencis is perfectly normal here.

Esperanto does have more complex tense combinations, but they are used much less often than in English. In ordinary speech and writing, -is usually does the job.

Because ekde kiam li komencis porti bandaĝon is a subordinate clause.

Esperanto commonly uses commas to separate the main clause from a subordinate clause:

• La pojno malpli doloras, ekde kiam...

This is very normal punctuation in Esperanto and often appears more regularly than in English.

Yes. In this sentence, la pojno is the thing that hurts less, so it is the subject.

That may feel slightly different from English, because English can also say:

• His wrist hurts
• It hurts in his wrist

Esperanto here simply says:

• La pojno doloras = The wrist hurts

So the wrist itself is treated as the subject of doloras.

Grammatically yes, but it would change the meaning.

• bandaĝon = a bandage
• bandaĝojn = bandages

In this sentence, singular sounds natural if he started wearing one bandage or one bandage-wrap on the wrist. If the situation really involved several bandages, then bandaĝojn would be possible.

Yes, most likely.

The structure ekde kiam... suggests that from the time he started wearing the bandage up to now, the wrist has been hurting less.

So even though Esperanto uses simple forms like doloras and komencis, the overall meaning is ongoing:

• he started wearing the bandage in the past
• since then, the wrist hurts less

That is one of the very common ways Esperanto expresses this idea.