Learn Hardcore Esperanto: Por mi, futbalo estas pli amuza ol alia sporto. - For me, football is more fun than another sport.

Por mi literally means for me and is a very natural way to introduce a personal preference or subjective view, especially about tastes:
- Por mi, futbalo estas pli amuza… = For me / As far as I’m concerned, football is more fun…
Mi pensas, ke futbalo estas pli amuza… focuses on the act of thinking:
- I think that football is more fun…

In practice:

Use Por mi when you’re talking about what’s true for you personally (taste, experience, circumstances).
Use Mi pensas, ke… when you want to emphasize that this is your thought / opinion (often in more argumentative or logical contexts).

In everyday speech, Por mi at the start of this kind of sentence is very common and idiomatic.

Is por mi the same as laŭ mi? Could I say Laŭ mi, futbalo estas pli amuza…?

You can say Laŭ mi, futbalo estas pli amuza ol alia sporto, and it’s correct.

Nuance:

por mi = for me, as it relates to me, in my experience
- Feels more like “for my taste / in my case”.
laŭ mi = according to me, in my opinion
- Feels more like “my judgment / the way I see it”.

In a sentence about how fun something is (a matter of taste), por mi is slightly more natural, but laŭ mi is also widely used and accepted. Many speakers use them almost interchangeably in casual speech.

Why is there a comma after Por mi? Is it required?

The comma is stylistic, not strictly required.

Por mi, futbalo estas pli amuza…
Por mi futbalo estas pli amuza…

Both are acceptable. The comma just makes the pause clearer and visually separates the introductory phrase Por mi from the main clause. Many writers do put a comma after a fronted phrase like this, but Esperanto punctuation is relatively flexible here.

Why is there no la (the) before futbalo or alia sporto?

In Esperanto, you usually omit la when you talk about things in a general, generic sense:

Futbalo estas pli amuza ol alia sporto.
= Football is more fun than another sport / (any) other sport in general.

You would add la when you mean some specific, known thing:

La futbalo, kiun ni ludas dimanĉe, estas pli amuza ol la aliaj sportoj en nia klubo.
= The football we play on Sundays is more fun than the other sports in our club.

Here we’re speaking about football and other sports in general, not specific named ones, so no la.

What exactly does futbalo mean? Is futbolo possible?

The standard Esperanto word is futbalo (root futbal- + -o noun ending), meaning the sport football/soccer.

futbalo = football/soccer (the sport)

The form futbolo (root futbol- + -o) is generally considered nonstandard or incorrect, because Esperanto normally borrows the root from “football” (futbal-), not from “futbol-”.

So in good Esperanto, use futbalo, not futbolo.

How does pli amuza ol express “more fun than”? How do comparatives work in Esperanto?

Esperanto uses a very regular pattern:

pli = more
malpli = less
plej = most
malplej = least
ol = than (for comparisons)

Structure for more X than Y:

pli + adjective + ol + [thing compared]

In this sentence:

pli amuza = more fun
ol alia sporto = than another sport

So:

futbalo estas pli amuza ol alia sporto
= football is more fun than another sport.

No extra endings or special comparative forms are used on the adjective itself; you just add pli or malpli in front of it.

Why is it amuza and not amuze or amuzan?

Because amuza is an adjective in the nominative (default) form, agreeing with the subject futbalo.

amuza: adjective (-a) = fun / amusing
amuze: adverb (-e) = in a fun way / funnily
amuzan: adjective with accusative -n = used only when needed for case (e.g. direct object).

In our sentence:

futbalo is the subject.
estas links the subject to a predicative adjective.
So we say: futbalo estas amuza (not amuzan), just like:
- La libro estas interesa. = The book is interesting.

We would need -n only if the noun/adjective were in the accusative role, e.g. as a direct object:

Mi trovas futbalon amuza. = I find football fun.
- Here futbalon has -n because it’s the direct object of trovas.

Why doesn’t alia sporto take -n? Isn’t something after ol in the accusative?

No. The -n accusative is not required just because a word comes after ol.

The rule: After “ol”, the compared thing stays in the same case it would have if it were stated separately.

Here, if you made two separate sentences, you would get:

Futbalo estas amuza. (Football is fun.)
Alia sporto estas amuza. (Another sport is fun.)

Both subjects are in the nominative (no -n). When you compare:

Futbalo estas pli amuza ol alia sporto.

alia sporto is still logically a subject of an implied estas, so it also stays nominative. No -n is needed.

Why is it alia sporto (singular “another sport”), when in English I might say “than other sports”? Can I say aliaj sportoj instead?

Both singular and plural are possible in Esperanto, with a slight nuance:

ol alia sporto
- literally: than another sport
- usually understood quite generally: than (any) other sport.
ol aliaj sportoj
- literally: than other sports (plural)
- emphasises a comparison with the group of other sports.

If you want to be very explicit (like “than any other sport”), you can say:

ol iu ajn alia sporto = than any other sport
ol ĉiuj aliaj sportoj = than all other sports

In everyday speech, ol alia sporto is commonly understood as a general comparison, and is perfectly natural.

Can I change the word order? For example, is Futbalo estas, por mi, pli amuza ol alia sporto or Futbalo, por mi, estas pli amuza… OK?

Yes. Esperanto word order is relatively flexible. Your examples are grammatical:

Por mi, futbalo estas pli amuza ol alia sporto.
Futbalo, por mi, estas pli amuza ol alia sporto.
Futbalo estas, por mi, pli amuza ol alia sporto.
Futbalo estas pli amuza ol alia sporto por mi.

They all mean essentially the same thing. The differences are about emphasis and rhythm:

Starting with Por mi highlights that this is a personal view.
Putting por mi later can sound a bit more like an added remark (“at least for me”).

The original order (Por mi, futbalo estas…) is very natural and common.

Could I drop estas and say Por mi, futbalo pli amuza ol alia sporto like in some other languages?

No. In Esperanto you normally must keep the verb estas (“is”) in such sentences.

Correct: Futbalo estas pli amuza ol alia sporto.
Incorrect: Futbalo pli amuza ol alia sporto.

Esperanto does not allow you to omit the copula (estas) the way some other languages do in present-tense “A is B” sentences. So always include estas (or another appropriate tense of esti).

How would I say “Football is the most fun sport for me” instead of just “more fun than another sport”?

Use the superlative with plej:

Por mi, futbalo estas la plej amuza sporto.
= For me, football is the most fun sport.

Structure:

plej + adjective = most + adjective
Add la when you mean the most.

So:

pli amuza = more fun
la plej amuza = the most fun

In English I can say “To me, football is more fun…”. Why is it por mi and not al mi?

In Esperanto:

por mi literally: for me
- Widely used to express “for my taste / in my case / as far as I’m concerned”.
al mi literally: to me
- Used with verbs that naturally take an indirect object:
  - Al mi plaĉas futbalo. = Football pleases me / I like football.
  - Li diris al mi. = He said to me.

For expressing a general opinion like “To me, football is more fun…”, Esperanto almost always uses por mi or laŭ mi, not al mi. So:

Por mi, futbalo estas pli amuza ol alia sporto. ✅
Laŭ mi, futbalo estas pli amuza ol alia sporto. ✅
Al mi, futbalo estas pli amuza… ❌ (sounds wrong to native-style Esperanto speakers in this meaning).