Learn Hardcore Esperanto: La vojo al nia hejmo estas pli trankvila ol la vojo al la oficejo. - The way to our home is calmer than the way to the office.

In this sentence, la vojo al nia hejmo literally means the road to our home – we are talking about a road that leads to a specific place (our home as a noun), so al + hejmo is natural.

You could say la vojo hejmen estas pli trankvila…, but that sounds a bit more like “the way back home is quieter…”, focusing on the movement home rather than on the physical destination as a place. Using al nia hejmo keeps it clearly as the road leading to our actual home (house).

Why do we need al before nia hejmo and before la oficejo?

Al means to / towards. In this structure la vojo al X, it works just like English “the road to X”.

So:

la vojo al nia hejmo = the road to our home
la vojo al la oficejo = the road to the office

Without al, la vojo nia hejmo or la vojo la oficejo would be ungrammatical or at least unclear; Esperanto generally needs the preposition to show this relationship.

Why doesn’t hejmo have -n if it is a destination?

You use -n for direction mainly when there is no preposition to show movement:

Mi iras hejmen. – I go home. (no preposition, so we add -n)
Mi iras al la hejmo. – I go to the home. (the al already shows direction)

In la vojo al nia hejmo, the preposition al already indicates direction to, so you don’t add -n to hejmo.
The rule of thumb: if the direction is already shown by a preposition like al, don’t add -n.

Why is it nia hejmo and not something like hejmo de ni?

Esperanto normally uses possessive adjectives like mia, via, nia, lia, ŝia, ĝia, nia, via, ilia rather than X de mi for simple possession.

So:

nia hejmo = our home (standard, natural)
hejmo de ni = home of us (grammatically possible, but rarely used and feels clumsy)

Use X de Y mostly when Y is a full noun phrase or when you want to emphasize the owner:
la hejmo de la familio – the home of the family.

Why is there no la before nia hejmo, but there is la before vojo and oficejo?

In Esperanto, you normally don’t use la with a possessive like mia / nia / lia…:

mia libro – my book (not la mia libro)
nia hejmo – our home

The possessive itself already makes the noun specific.
But vojo and oficejo have no possessive, so we use la to mean the:

la vojo – the road
la oficejo – the office

So la vojo al nia hejmo = the road to our home.

Why is it vojo and not strato here? What’s the difference?

vojo = way, route, road, path – very general. It can be a road, a path, a route you take.
strato = a street (usually in a town or city, with houses, addresses, etc.).

In la vojo al nia hejmo, we’re talking about the way/route to our home—a more general idea than a specific city street. If you specifically wanted to say the street to our home, you could say la strato al nia hejmo, but that slightly changes the meaning.

Why is it oficejo and not ofico?

-ejo is a very common suffix meaning place where something is done.

ofico = an office in the sense of a post, duty, function
oficejo = the office (building or room), the place where you work

So la oficejo is exactly the physical office, just like the English word in this context.

What does estas do in this sentence? Is it always necessary?

Estas is the verb to be (is/are). Here it links the subject to its description:

La vojo … estas pli trankvila…
→ The road … is quieter…

In standard Esperanto you normally need estas when you want to say something is something (a noun, an adjective, a place, etc.). Omitting estas is not normal prose; it would sound poetic or broken.

Why is it pli trankvila and not trankvilere or something with a special comparative ending like English -er?

Esperanto doesn’t use endings like -er for comparatives. It always uses pli:

trankvila = quiet, calm
pli trankvila = quieter / more calm
plej trankvila = quietest / most calm

There is no special comparative suffix; you use pli before the adjective: pli granda, pli interesa, pli bela, etc.

Why is it pli trankvila (adjective) and not pli trankvile (adverb)?

You use an adjective (-a) to describe a noun, and an adverb (-e) to describe a verb, adjective, or whole clause.

Here we are describing la vojo (a noun), so we need an adjective:
- la vojo … estas pli trankvila – the road is quieter.
pli trankvile would describe how something is done:
- Ni veturas pli trankvile. – We drive more quietly / more calmly.

So -a is correct because the road (vojo) itself is quieter.

What is the function of ol? Why not use kiel or de for “than”?

In Esperanto, ordinary comparisons use the pattern:

pli / malpli / tiel … ol …

pli granda ol – bigger than
malpli brua ol – less noisy than
tiel longa ol – as long as

So here:
pli trankvila ol la vojo al la oficejo = quieter than the road to the office.

Kiel means as / how, and is used in same-as comparisons like tiel … kiel … (as … as …). De is not used for than in comparisons.

Do we really have to repeat la vojo in ol la vojo al la oficejo? Can we shorten it?

You can shorten it a bit, but you have to stay clear. Some options:

Original:
La vojo al nia hejmo estas pli trankvila ol la vojo al la oficejo.
Shorter, still clear:
La vojo al nia hejmo estas pli trankvila ol tiu al la oficejo.
(… than that one to the office.)
Even shorter but more colloquial/elliptical:
La vojo al nia hejmo estas pli trankvila ol al la oficejo.
Many speakers accept this, but it relies on context to understand that vojo is omitted.

The full version with la vojo repeated is very clear and perfectly correct, especially for learners.

Could we change the word order to La vojo estas pli trankvila al nia hejmo ol al la oficejo?

That word order is not natural and changes the feel of the sentence.
It sounds like “The road is quieter to our home than to the office”, as if the same road behaves differently depending on where you are going.

In Esperanto, you typically keep the destination inside the noun phrase:

la vojo al nia hejmo – the road to our home

So keep it like the original:
La vojo al nia hejmo estas pli trankvila ol la vojo al la oficejo.

Why are vojo, hejmo, and oficejo singular here?

We are talking about one route to our home and one route to the office:

la vojo al nia hejmo – the way/road to our home
la vojo al la oficejo – the way/road to the office

If you wanted to talk about several roads, you would use the plural -j:

La vojoj al nia hejmo estas pli trankvilaj ol la vojoj al la oficejo.
– The roads to our home are quieter than the roads to the office.

The adjective would then also agree in number: trankvilaj.

Can hejmo mean both “home” as a place and “home” as a concept of family/life, like in English?

Yes. Hejmo is flexible like English home:

physical place: Nia hejmo estas granda. – Our home (house) is big.
more emotional concept: Mi amas mian hejmon. – I love my home.

In la vojo al nia hejmo, context suggests the physical place where you live, because it’s the endpoint of a vojo (road/route). The word itself, though, doesn’t force only the physical meaning.