La astronomo legas araban libron.

the book

Breakdown of La astronomo legas araban libron.

• la: the
• legi: to read
• astronomo: the astronomer

Questions & Answers about La astronomo legas araban libron.

Why is there la at the beginning?

La is the Esperanto definite article, meaning the.

So:

• la astronomo = the astronomer

Unlike English, Esperanto has only one article of this kind:

• la = the

It does not change for gender, number, or case. So it stays la in all situations.

Also, Esperanto has no indefinite article. That means there is no separate word for a or an. If you said just astronomo, it could mean an astronomer or astronomer, depending on context.

Why does astronomo end in -o?

In Esperanto, nouns normally end in -o.

So:

• astronomo = astronomer
• libro = book

This makes word classes very easy to recognize. When you see -o, you can usually expect a noun.

A few useful basic endings are:

• -o = noun
• -a = adjective
• -e = adverb
• -i = infinitive verb
• -as = present tense verb

So astronomo is clearly a noun because of the -o.

Why is the verb legas and not something else like legi?