Word
La komercisto montras malnovan traktaton.
Meaning
The merchant shows an old treaty.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of La komercisto montras malnovan traktaton.
la
the
montri
to show
malnova
old
komercisto
the merchant; trader
Questions & Answers about La komercisto montras malnovan traktaton.
Why does the sentence start with la?
La is the Esperanto definite article, meaning the.
So la komercisto means the merchant or the trader, not just a merchant.
A key difference from English is that Esperanto has no indefinite article. There is no separate word for a/an. So:
- komercisto = a merchant / merchant
- la komercisto = the merchant
Why does komercisto end in -o?
In Esperanto, all nouns end in -o.
So:
- komercist-o = merchant, trader
This makes it easy to recognize parts of speech. If you see -o, you can usually expect a noun.
Also, the middle part -ist- often means a person associated with a profession, activity, or ideology. So komercisto is someone involved in commerce or trade.
What does montras mean grammatically, and why does it end in -as?