Morgaŭ estos dimanĉo, la dua tago de nia semajnfino.

Tomorrow will be Sunday, the second day of our weekend.

Breakdown of Morgaŭ estos dimanĉo, la dua tago de nia semajnfino.

• esti: to be
• la: the
• morgaŭ: tomorrow
• de: of
• tago: the day
• nia: our
• semajnfino: the weekend
• dimanĉo: Sunday
• dua: second

Questions & Answers about Morgaŭ estos dimanĉo, la dua tago de nia semajnfino.

Why does the sentence use estos (future tense), when in English we usually say “Tomorrow is Sunday,” not “Tomorrow will be Sunday”?

Esperanto allows both options here:

• Morgaŭ estas dimanĉo. – literally “Tomorrow is Sunday.”
• Morgaŭ estos dimanĉo. – literally “Tomorrow will be Sunday.”

Both are correct and commonly used.

The difference is very small and mostly stylistic:

• estas focuses more on stating a fact about the calendar (as if tomorrow is already fixed and we simply state it).
• estos makes the future aspect more explicit (it highlights that this situation belongs to the future).

In everyday Esperanto, you will see estas very often in sentences about tomorrow or next week, but using estos is also perfectly natural.

Why do we need estos at all? Could we just say Morgaŭ dimanĉo?

Standard Esperanto uses esti (to be) in sentences that link a subject and a noun:

• Morgaŭ estos dimanĉo. – “Tomorrow will be Sunday.”

However, in informal or poetic language, you can sometimes omit esti in simple present-like statements:

• Hodiaŭ lundo. – “Today (is) Monday.”

For the future, dropping esti sounds much less natural. Morgaŭ dimanĉo is not wrong as a very telegraphic, headline-like style, but in normal speech or writing you should keep estos:

• Normal: Morgaŭ estos dimanĉo.
• Very clipped style (headline, note, etc.): Morgaŭ dimanĉo.

Why does dimanĉo have no article (la)? Shouldn’t it be la dimanĉo?

Names of days of the week in Esperanto normally do not take the article la when used like this:

• Hodiaŭ estas lundo. – “Today is Monday.”
• Morgaŭ estos dimanĉo. – “Tomorrow will be Sunday.”

It’s similar to English, where we say “Today is Monday”, not “Today is the Monday”.

You could add la if you are talking about a specific Sunday among several, but then you would usually add more information:

• La dimanĉo post Kristnasko estos tre trankvila.
  “The Sunday after Christmas will be very quiet.”

In the sentence you gave, dimanĉo is just the name of the day, so no article is used.

Why is there a comma before la dua tago de nia semajnfino?

The phrase la dua tago de nia semajnfino is in apposition to dimanĉo. That means it is another way of describing the same thing:

• dimanĉo = “Sunday”
• la dua tago de nia semajnfino = “the second day of our weekend”

So the structure is:

• Morgaŭ estos dimanĉo, la dua tago de nia semajnfino.
  “Tomorrow will be Sunday, the second day of our weekend.”

Esperanto punctuation is close to international usage: commas commonly separate appositions, just like in English:

• Anna, mia amikino, venos morgaŭ.
  “Anna, my friend, will come tomorrow.”

Why is it la dua tago and not la duan tagon (with -n)?

La dua tago is the subject complement (a predicate noun phrase), not a direct object. The verb esti (“to be”) does not take a direct object, so we do not add the accusative -n here.

Word-by-word:

• Morgaŭ – tomorrow (adverb)
• estos – will be
• dimanĉo – Sunday (subject complement)
• la dua tago de nia semajnfino – the second day of our weekend (another complement, in apposition)

Since nothing is being acted upon, there is no need for the accusative:

• Correct: Morgaŭ estos dimanĉo, la dua tago de nia semajnfino.
• Incorrect: … la duan tagon … (unless you changed the structure to make la duan tagon a direct object of some other verb).

What is the difference between dua and dua tago? Why does dua end in -a?

In Esperanto:

• du = “two” (a number)
• dua = “second” (an ordinal adjective)

Adjectives in Esperanto end in -a. Ordinals (first, second, third, etc.) are formed by adding -a to the number:

• unu → unua – first
• du → dua – second
• tri → tria – third

Adjectives agree in number and case with the noun they describe:

• dua tago – second day (singular, nominative)
• duaj tagoj – second days (plural, nominative)
• duan tagon – second day (singular, accusative)

Here, dua modifies tago, so it must be in the adjective form dua.

Why is it de nia semajnfino and not de la semajnfino?

Nia already shows both possession and definiteness:

• nia semajnfino = “our weekend” (a specific one)
• la semajnfino = “the weekend” (in general, or one that is contextually known)

In Esperanto, possessive adjectives like mia, via, nia, etc., usually replace the article. You don’t normally say la nia semajnfino.

So:

• la semajnfino – the weekend
• nia semajnfino – our weekend

Using de nia semajnfino (“of our weekend”) is natural when you want to specify whose weekend you are talking about.

What exactly does semajnfino mean, and why is it one word?

Semajnfino is a compound noun:

• semajno – week
• fino – end
• semajnfino – weekend (literally “week-end”)

In Esperanto, it is very common to form compound words simply by putting roots together and giving the result the appropriate ending:

• manĝotablo – dining table (manĝi “to eat” + tablo “table”)
• laborĉambro – workroom, office (laboro “work” + ĉambro “room”)
• semajnfino – weekend

Semajna fino (two separate words) would mean “weekly end” (an adjective plus a noun), which is not the usual way to say “weekend”. The fixed noun for “weekend” is the one-word compound semajnfino.

Why is it nia semajnfino and not niaj semajnfinoj?

Agreement works like this:

• nia – our (modifying a singular noun)
• niaj – our (modifying a plural noun)

In the sentence, we are talking about one weekend:

• nia semajnfino – our weekend (one weekend)
• niaj semajnfinoj – our weekends (more than one)

So we use nia semajnfino in the singular because there is just one weekend in question.

Could we say Morgaŭ dimanĉo estos la dua tago de nia semajnfino instead? How flexible is the word order?

Esperanto word order is relatively flexible, especially when endings clearly show the grammatical role. However, clarity and naturalness still matter.

All of these are grammatically correct and understandable:

• Morgaŭ estos dimanĉo, la dua tago de nia semajnfino.
• Morgaŭ dimanĉo estos la dua tago de nia semajnfino.
• Dimanĉo morgaŭ estos la dua tago de nia semajnfino. (less natural)

The original version is very natural because it keeps the simple pattern:

• time word (Morgaŭ) → verb (estos) → predicate noun phrase (dimanĉo, la dua tago de nia semajnfino).

In practice, most Esperantists would prefer something close to the original order for ease of understanding.

Why is “weekend” semajnfino and not fino de la semajno?

Both are possible, but they are not used in exactly the same way:

• semajnfino – the standard, compact word for “weekend”.
• la fino de la semajno – literally “the end of the week”; grammatically correct, but longer and feels more descriptive than idiomatic.

It’s similar to English:

• “weekend” (a fixed word)
• “the end of the week” (a longer expression that feels a bit more formal or descriptive)

In everyday Esperanto, semajnfino is the normal choice when you mean “weekend” in the usual sense (Saturday and Sunday, or whatever counts as weekend culturally).

Why is there no -n on morgaŭ? Shouldn’t time expressions sometimes take the accusative?

Morgaŭ is an adverb (“tomorrow”), and adverbs in -e or bare adverbs like hieraŭ, hodiaŭ, morgaŭ do not take the accusative -n.

The accusative -n for time is used when a noun phrase is used as a time adverbial:

• Ĉi-lunkan vesperon mi laboros.
  “This Monday evening I will work.”
  (vesperon is a noun in the accusative functioning as “when?”)

But morgaŭ is already an adverb, not a noun, so we just say:

• Morgaŭ mi laboros. – “Tomorrow I will work.”
• Morgaŭ estos dimanĉo. – “Tomorrow will be Sunday.”

No -n is needed or possible on morgaŭ.