Breakdown of Mia patro laboras en la urbo, kaj mia patrino instruas en la lernejo.
Questions & Answers about Mia patro laboras en la urbo, kaj mia patrino instruas en la lernejo.
Esperanto has only one article, la, which means the. There is no word for a/an.
Mia patro, mia patrino: When you use a possessive word (mia, via, lia, etc.), you normally don’t use la. The possession already makes it specific, so:
- mia patro = my father (not the my father)
- mia patrino = my mother
en la urbo, en la lernejo: Here there is no possessive, so if you want to say the city, the school, you use la:
- la urbo = the city / the town
- la lernejo = the school
In Esperanto, verb endings show the tense:
- -as = present tense
- -is = past
- -os = future
So:
- laboras = works / is working
- instruas = teaches / is teaching
The ending -as is used for all persons (I, you, he, we, etc.). You don’t change the verb form for different subjects:
- Mi laboras – I work
- Vi laboras – You work
- Li laboras – He works
- Ili laboras – They work
Esperanto usually doesn’t distinguish between simple and progressive aspects the way English does.
- Mia patro laboras en la urbo can translate as:
- My father works in the city
- My father is working in the city
If you really need to emphasize the ongoing action right now, you can say:
- Mia patro estas laboranta en la urbo – My father is (right now) working in the city.
But in most everyday situations, simple laboras is enough and sounds more natural.
You can use either a noun phrase or a pronoun as the subject.
- Mia patro laboras en la urbo. – My father works in the city.
- Li laboras en la urbo. – He works in the city.
Both are correct; the sentence just chooses to name who he is (your father) instead of only using li (he).
You wouldn’t normally use both together (Mia patro li laboras)—that would be wrong or at least very unnatural in Esperanto.
Kaj means and, and it is used very much like English and:
- Connecting words: patro kaj patrino – father and mother
- Connecting phrases:
Mia patro laboras en la urbo, kaj mia patrino instruas en la lernejo.
– My father works in the city, and my mother teaches in the school.
There is no special rule here: just think of kaj as the regular conjunction and.
Yes. In Esperanto, the infix -in- marks a specifically female person or animal.
- patro = father (male parent)
- patrino = mother (female parent)
More examples:
- frato = brother → fratino = sister
- onklo = uncle → onklino = aunt
- leono = lion → leonino = lioness
So patrino is formed from patr- (parent/root related to father) + -in- (female) + -o (noun ending).
En basically means in / inside.
- laboras en la urbo – works in the city (within the city)
- instruas en la lernejo – teaches in the school (inside that school building/institution)
Ĉe means at / by / near, not inside:
- Li laboras ĉe la fabriko. – He works at the factory (his workplace is that factory; not necessarily physically inside it right now).
- Ni renkontiĝos ĉe la lernejo. – We’ll meet at the school (next to or by the school).
In this sentence, en is the natural choice because you’re talking about being in the city and in the school.
Literally, la urbo is the city. In practice, it often means “(in) town”, especially when it’s obvious from context which town you mean (the nearest town, the one where you usually go, etc.).
So:
- Mia patro laboras en la urbo.
Can be understood as either:- My father works in the city (as opposed to in the countryside).
- My father works in town.
Similarly, la lernejo is the school, usually the one known from context (e.g. the local school, the one the children attend, etc.).
It can have an object, but it doesn’t have to. In Esperanto:
- instruas = teaches / gives instruction
If you want to specify what is being taught, you add an object:
- ŝi instruas la anglan – she teaches English
- ŝi instruas matematikon – she teaches mathematics
But you can also just say:
- ŝi instruas en la lernejo – she teaches in the school
This focuses on her profession or role, not on the subject she teaches. English sometimes does the same: “My mother teaches at the school.”
Esperanto word order is fairly flexible, especially because roles are often clear from endings and context.
Besides the neutral:
- Mia patro laboras en la urbo.
You can also say:
- En la urbo laboras mia patro.
– Still My father works in the city, but with extra emphasis on en la urbo (in the city).
However, the subject–verb–rest order (SVO) is the most common and easiest for learners:
- Subject: Mia patro
- Verb: laboras
- Rest of the sentence: en la urbo
Esperanto often builds words from meaningful roots plus affixes.
- lern- = root meaning learn
- -ejo = suffix meaning place where something happens
So:
- lernejo = place where learning happens → school
Similarly:
- manĝi (to eat) → manĝejo (dining room, eating place)
- dormi (to sleep) → dormejo (sleeping place, dormitory)
There is the word skolo in Esperanto, but it means (philosophical / artistic) school, movement (e.g. the romantic school in literature), not an ordinary educational school. For a normal school building/institution, you use lernejo.
Pronunciation rules in Esperanto are very regular:
- Every vowel is pronounced clearly.
- The stress is always on the second-to-last (penultimate) syllable.
Examples:
- pa-tro → PA-tro
- ur-bo → UR-bo
- ler-NE-jo → ler-NE-yo (the j sounds like English y in yes)
So the full sentence is stressed like this (capital letters mark stressed syllables):
MI-a PA-tro la-BO-ras EN la UR-bo, kaj MI-a pa-TRI-no in-STRU-as EN la ler-NE-jo.