Learn Hardcore Esperanto: En nia urbo hodiaŭ falas pluvo, sed hieraŭ falis neĝo. - In our city today rain is falling, but yesterday snow fell.

In this sentence, the speaker starts with the place and time (En nia urbo hodiaŭ), then gives the verb and only then the subject (falas pluvo). This is allowed and quite natural in Esperanto, especially when:

you want to emphasize the setting (En nia urbo hodiaŭ), or
you want to keep the sentence flowing more rhythmically.

So both Pluvo falas en nia urbo hodiaŭ and En nia urbo hodiaŭ falas pluvo are grammatically correct; the difference is mostly in style and emphasis, not in meaning.

Why does the sentence say falas pluvo instead of just pluvas?

Esperanto has two common ways to talk about rain (and similarly for snow):

Using a specific noun plus a general verb:
- falas pluvo = “rain falls”
- falis neĝo = “snow fell”
Using a special weather verb:
- pluvas = “it rains / it is raining”
- neĝas = “it snows / it is snowing”

Both patterns are correct. The version with falas pluvo is a bit more literal or descriptive (you picture rain falling). The version with pluvas is more compact and very common in everyday speech.

So you could equally well say:

En nia urbo hodiaŭ pluvas, sed hieraŭ neĝis.

What exactly is the difference between falas and falis?

They show tense by their endings:

fal-as = present tense (“falls / is falling / does fall”)
fal-is = past tense (“fell / has fallen / was falling,” depending on context)

Esperanto does not have a separate continuous/progressive form. falas can cover English falls, is falling, or does fall – the context decides. Likewise, falis can correspond to fell or has fallen.

In this sentence:

hodiaŭ falas ≈ “(today) is falling / falls”
hieraŭ falis ≈ “(yesterday) fell”

Why is there no la before pluvo and neĝo?

la is the definite article, used when you mean “the” in the sense of a specific, identifiable thing.

Here, pluvo and neĝo are general, mass nouns – “rain” and “snow” in general, not some particular, already-known rain or snow. Esperanto usually omits la with:

substances and mass nouns used generally (e.g. akvo, vintraj neĝoj),
weather phenomena where English would often say “the rain / the snow.”

Compare:

En nia urbo hodiaŭ falas pluvo.
“Rain falls in our city today.” (It is raining there.)
La pluvo, kiu komenciĝis hieraŭ, ankoraŭ falas.
“The rain that started yesterday is still falling.” (A particular rain, already known.)

So in the original sentence, omitting la is the normal, idiomatic choice.

Shouldn’t pluvo and neĝo have the -n ending and be pluvon and neĝon as objects?

No. pluvo and neĝo are subjects here, not objects.

The verb fali (“to fall”) is intransitive in this sense: the thing that falls is its subject.

falas pluvo = “rain falls” (rain is the thing doing the falling)
falis neĝo = “snow fell”

Only direct objects take the -n ending. Since pluvo and neĝo are not objects of another action, they stay in their basic form (the nominative): pluvo, neĝo.

Why is it en nia urbo and not en nian urbon with -n?

en (“in / into”) can express either location (where something is) or movement (where something goes to). The -n ending after a preposition is used to show movement toward a place.

en nia urbo = “in our city” (static location)
en nian urbon = “into our city” (motion towards the city)

In the sentence, the city is just the place where the rain/snow happens, not a destination of movement, so we use en nia urbo without -n.

Could I instead say En nia urbo hodiaŭ pluvas, sed hieraŭ neĝis? Is that more natural?

Yes, that version is completely correct and very natural:

En nia urbo hodiaŭ pluvas, sed hieraŭ neĝis.

This uses the special weather verbs:

pluvas = “it is raining”
neĝas = “it is snowing”

Both your original sentence and this alternative are good Esperanto. Many speakers would probably prefer pluvas / neĝis in everyday conversation because they are shorter and conventional for talking about weather, but falas pluvo / falis neĝo is perfectly acceptable and slightly more literal in imagery.

What kind of words are hodiaŭ and hieraŭ, and where can they appear in the sentence?

hodiaŭ (“today”) and hieraŭ (“yesterday”) are adverbs of time. They:

do not add extra endings like -a, -e, -n, etc.
answer the question “when?”

They are flexible in position. All of these are correct:

Hodiaŭ en nia urbo falas pluvo.
En nia urbo hodiaŭ falas pluvo.
En nia urbo falas pluvo hodiaŭ.

Similarly for hieraŭ. Putting them earlier in the sentence tends to give them more emphasis.

What exactly does sed mean here, and why is there a comma before it?

sed means “but”, introducing a contrast between two clauses:

Today: falas pluvo (it’s raining)
Yesterday: falis neĝo (it snowed)

So … falas pluvo, sed hieraŭ falis neĝo = “… rain is falling, but yesterday snow fell.”

As for the comma: when sed connects two full clauses, it is very common (and stylistically recommended) to put a comma before it, just like many writers do in English before “but”. The comma marks the boundary between the two clauses and makes the sentence easier to read, but the core grammar does not depend on it.

Why is there no ĝi (“it”) as the subject, like Ĝi falas pluvo?

Esperanto usually does not use a dummy “it” for weather, unlike English.

You have two main options:

A real subject noun:
- falas pluvo (“rain falls”)
- falis neĝo (“snow fell”)
An impersonal weather verb without any subject:
- pluvas (“it is raining”)
- neĝas (“it is snowing”)

The form Ĝi falas pluvo would actually be ungrammatical: ĝi would be the subject, so pluvo would have to be turned into an object (pluvon) to make sense mechanically, and then the sentence would literally say “it is raining rain,” which is not how Esperanto expresses weather.

In nia urbo, why is it nia and not niaj?

nia is a possessive adjective (from ni = “we”). Like other adjectives in Esperanto, it agrees in number and case with the noun it describes:

singular, no -n: nia urbo = “our city”
plural, no -n: niaj urboj = “our cities”
singular, with -n: nian urbon = “our city” as a direct object
plural, with -n: niajn urbojn = “our cities” as direct object

In the sentence, urbo is singular and not an object of any verb, so the correct form is nia urbo.