Breakdown of La infano foje estas maltrankvila, sed ŝia patrino rakontas al ŝi trankvilan rakonton.
Questions & Answers about La infano foje estas maltrankvila, sed ŝia patrino rakontas al ŝi trankvilan rakonton.
In Esperanto, la is the definite article, like the in English.
- La infano = the child (a specific child that we have in mind).
- Infano (without la) = a child or child in a more general sense.
In this sentence, a specific child is being talked about (the one whose mother tells her a story), so la is natural and expected.
Yes, all of these are grammatically correct:
- La infano foje estas maltrankvila
- Foje la infano estas maltrankvila
- La infano estas foje maltrankvila
Esperanto word order is fairly flexible, especially for adverbs like foje (sometimes).
The differences are mainly about emphasis:
- Foje la infano estas maltrankvila puts slight emphasis on foje: Sometimes, the child is restless…
- La infano foje estas maltrankvila and La infano estas foje maltrankvila are very similar in feel; foje is just inserted in the verb phrase.
All three versions are natural and understandable.
Both can be translated as not calm, but they’re not used in exactly the same way.
- trankvila = calm
- maltrankvila = restless, anxious, uneasy (the standard opposite of trankvila)
- ne trankvila = not calm (a looser, more neutral negation)
mal- is a very regular prefix meaning opposite of. Using maltrankvila suggests a clear opposite quality (restlessness, anxiety).
Using ne trankvila just says it’s not calm, without necessarily specifying what it is instead.
In this sentence, maltrankvila is more idiomatic.
The word infano is gender‑neutral and simply means child. You find out the child is female from the pronouns and possessives that refer back to her:
- ŝia patrino = her mother
- al ŝi = to her
The ŝi‑ forms indicate that the child is female.
If you wanted to make the word for the child itself explicitly feminine, you could say knabino (girl) or infanino (female child), but it isn’t required here—the pronouns already tell you.
- ŝia patrino = her mother
- la patrino = the mother
If you said la patrino rakontas…, it could mean the mother (some mother that was mentioned before) tells…, but it doesn’t show clearly that this is the child’s mother.
ŝia is a possessive word meaning her. It shows that the mother belongs to (is related to) the child mentioned earlier. This makes the relationship explicit.
- ŝi = she (subject or, with a preposition like al, indirect object)
- ŝia = her as a possessive (literally, her‑one)
In the sentence:
- ŝia patrino = her mother
Here ŝia is an adjective-like word describing who the mother belongs to. - al ŝi = to her
Here ŝi is the pronoun itself, and al (to) shows its role in the sentence.
So: ŝi is the person, ŝia shows possession.
Both verbs are about speaking, but they have different uses:
- rakonti = to tell a story, to narrate, to relate an event in some detail
- diri = to say, to utter words, to state
A rakonto is a story, so rakonti rakonton is literally to tell a story.
If you used diri, you would usually follow it with the words being said (e.g. Ŝi diras, ke… = She says that…), not with rakonton.
Esperanto distinguishes:
- direct object (what is told) → accusative -n
- indirect object (to whom it is told) → usually with the preposition al
In the sentence:
- rakontas … rakonton → rakonton is the direct object (the thing being told).
- al ŝi → shows to whom the story is told (indirect object).
If you said rakontas ŝin, it would mean tells her as the thing being told, which doesn’t make sense here. You tell a story to her → rakontas rakonton al ŝi.
The -n ending marks the accusative case, usually used for the direct object of the verb.
- rakonto = story
- rakonton = story as direct object (the thing being told)
trankvila rakonto is a noun phrase: an adjective trankvila + noun rakonto.
In Esperanto, adjectives agree with the noun in number and case:
- base form: trankvila rakonto
- as a direct object (accusative): trankvilan rakonton
Both the adjective and the noun take -n here, because the whole phrase is the direct object.
The preposition al (to) already shows the grammatical role of the pronoun: it is the indirect object.
In Esperanto, you normally do not add -n after a preposition:
- al ŝi = to her
- kun ŝi = with her
- pri ŝi = about her
You use -n mainly for a direct object without a preposition (e.g. Mi vidas ŝin = I see her), or with some prepositions when you want to show direction (like en la domon = into the house).
Here, al ŝi is just a normal prepositional phrase, so ŝi stays in its base form.
Grammatically, yes:
- …rakontas al ŝi rakonton is correct.
- …rakontas al ŝi trankvilan rakonton is also correct.
Removing trankvilan simply removes the description calm. The structure stays the same: rakonton is still the direct object with -n.
The full phrase is used to give more information about the kind of story.
Yes, it is related.
- fojo = a time, an occurrence (as in unufoje = once, multfoje = many times)
- foje = as an adverb, sometimes, at times
So foje estas maltrankvila literally has the sense is, on some occasions, restless, which we naturally translate as is sometimes restless.