Learn Hardcore Esperanto: La pordo de nia hejmo estas malnova, sed ĝi ankoraŭ fermiĝas bone. - The door of our home is old, but it still closes well.

la pordo de nia hejmo = the door of our home
- You’re emphasizing which door: the one that belongs to / is part of our home.
- It sounds a bit more specific and descriptive.
nia pordo = our door
- This is shorter and a bit more general.
- It could be any door we own or use (e.g. our office door, our car door) depending on context.

In this particular sentence, the speaker explicitly wants to say the door of our home, so de nia hejmo is used to spell that out. But in many everyday situations, nia pordo would also be natural if the context is clear.

What does hejmo mean exactly, and how is it different from domo?

Both are often translated as home/house, but they’re not quite the same:

domo = house as a building (a physical structure with walls, roof, etc.)
hejmo = home as a place where you live and belong, with an emotional or personal sense

So:

nia domo – our house (the building we live in)
nia hejmo – our home (the place where we feel at home, our home life)

In la pordo de nia hejmo, the speaker is talking about “the door of our home,” with that emotional nuance, not just any building.

What does de mean here, and how is it different from English of or from?

de is a very flexible preposition. Its main meanings are:

of (possession / belonging / “genitive”)
- la pordo de nia hejmo – the door of our home
- la libro de Maria – Maria’s book
from (origin, source)
- Mi venas de la lernejo. – I come from the school.

In this sentence, de is clearly used in sense 1: expressing that the door belongs to / is part of our home.

Context normally makes it obvious whether de should be read as of or from in English.

Why is malnova after estas instead of before pordo? Could we say la malnova pordo?

Yes, you can say both, but they’re slightly different structures:

la pordo de nia hejmo estas malnova
- This is a full clause: the door … is old.
- malnova is a predicative adjective, coming after estas.
la malnova pordo de nia hejmo
- This is just a noun phrase: the old door of our home.
- malnova is an attributive adjective, directly attached to pordo.

Both are completely correct Esperanto. The original sentence is structured as a full statement with estas. If you wanted to use the noun phrase, you’d need to adjust the rest of the sentence, e.g.:

La malnova pordo de nia hejmo ankoraŭ fermiĝas bone.
(The old door of our home still closes well.)

What does the prefix mal- in malnova mean?

mal- is a very productive prefix in Esperanto meaning roughly the direct opposite.

nova – new
malnova – old (the opposite of new)

Other examples:

bona – good, malbona – bad
alta – tall/high, malalta – short/low
facila – easy, malfacila – difficult

So malnova literally means not-new / opposite-of-new → old.

What does ĝi refer to in this sentence, and can we leave it out?

ĝi is the third-person singular pronoun for “it” (or sometimes “he/she” for animals when sex is unknown or irrelevant).

In this sentence:

ĝi refers back to la pordo de nia hejmo (the door of our home).

So:

… sed ĝi ankoraŭ fermiĝas bone.
= … but it still closes well.

In Esperanto you must keep the subject pronoun; you normally cannot drop it as in Spanish or Italian.
So:

✅ sed ĝi ankoraŭ fermiĝas bone.
❌ sed ankoraŭ fermiĝas bone. (subject is missing)

You can move other words around for emphasis, but ĝi needs to stay somewhere as the subject.

Why is it fermiĝas and not fermas?

The difference is about transitivity – whether the verb takes a direct object.

fermi = to close (something) – transitive
- Mi fermas la pordon. – I close the door.
fermiĝi = to get closed / to close (by itself) – intransitive
- La pordo fermiĝas. – The door closes / is closing.

The suffix -iĝ- usually means:

to become X (ruĝiĝi – to become red),
or to get into state X,
or to undergo the action X.

So:

ĝi fermiĝas = it closes (itself) or it is in the process of closing, without mentioning who is doing the closing.
ĝi fermas would mean it closes (something else) and would need an object:
- Ĝi fermas la truon. – It closes the hole.

In the given sentence, the idea is that the door itself still closes well, not that it closes something else, so fermiĝas is correct.

What does ankoraŭ mean, and why is it placed before fermiĝas?

ankoraŭ usually means “still” or “yet”, depending on context.

Here:

ĝi ankoraŭ fermiĝas bone
= it still closes well.

About placement:

The usual neutral place is before the verb or before the word it modifies:
- ĝi ankoraŭ fermiĝas bone
- ĝi ankoraŭ bone fermiĝas

You can also see:

Ĝi fermiĝas ankoraŭ bone. – also possible, emphasizing still well.

All of these would be understandable. The original placement (ĝi ankoraŭ fermiĝas bone) is very common and natural: “it still closes well.”

Why is it bone and not bona?

The difference is adjective vs. adverb:

bona = good (adjective; describes a noun)
- bona pordo – a good door
bone = well (adverb; describes a verb, adjective, or other adverb)
- ĝi fermiĝas bone – it closes well

Here, we are describing how the door closes (the manner of the action), not what kind of door it is. So we need the adverb:

ĝi fermiĝas bone – it closes well.
Not:
❌ ĝi fermiĝas bona. (would be ungrammatical in Esperanto)

Why isn’t there any plural or agreement ending on malnova or bone?

There is agreement, but it’s already correct for the singular:

Noun: pordo – singular
Adjective describing it: malnova – singular adjective form (-a)
If it were plural:
- pordoj – doors
- malnovaj pordoj – old doors (adjective gets -j to agree)

Here, there is only one door, so:

la pordo … estas malnova – the door … is old (no -j)

For bone: adverbs in Esperanto always end in -e and never take plural endings, because they don’t agree with nouns:

bone – well
tre bone – very well

So bone has the correct form and doesn’t change.

What is the role of sed, and how does it differ from tamen?

sed is a conjunction meaning “but”. It connects two clauses with a contrast:

La pordo … estas malnova, sed ĝi ankoraŭ fermiĝas bone.
= The door … is old, but it still closes well.

tamen is usually an adverb meaning “however / nevertheless”. It can appear inside the second clause, not between the two as a pure conjunction:

La pordo … estas malnova; tamen ĝi ankoraŭ fermiĝas bone.
= The door … is old; however, it still closes well.

So:

sed = “but” (connecting word between clauses)
tamen = “however / nevertheless” (inside the clause, giving a concessive nuance)

You could even combine them:

… sed tamen ĝi ankoraŭ fermiĝas bone. – but nevertheless it still closes well.