Learn Hardcore Esperanto: Ŝi malfermas retejon kun novaĵoj, sed mi preferas la gazeton. - She opens a website with news, but I prefer the newspaper.

The Esperanto present-tense verb malfermas can cover all of these English nuances, depending on context. It literally means “opens / is opening” right now, but context can also make it sound like a near-future plan.

Simple present:
- Ŝi malfermas retejon… = She opens a website… (a description of what she does, e.g. as part of her work)
Progressive (“is -ing”) sense:
- In real-life context, this same Ŝi malfermas retejon… is usually understood as “She is opening a website… (now / around this time).”
Future-like meaning:
- Sometimes present tense in Esperanto can imply a near-future action if the context makes that clear, but for a clear future you would say Ŝi malfermos retejon….

So malfermas is just the normal present tense; it doesn’t distinguish between “opens” and “is opening”. English aspect is handled by context, not by the verb form.

Why is retejon written with -n at the end?

The -n marks the accusative case, which (among other things) shows the direct object of the verb.

Verb: malfermas (opens)
Direct object (thing being opened): retejo (website)
In Esperanto, the direct object takes -n: retejon.

So:

Ŝi malfermas retejon. = She opens / is opening a website.
- Ŝi = subject
- malfermas = verb
- retejon = direct object → accusative -n

If you removed the -n and said Ŝi malfermas retejo, it would be grammatically wrong in standard Esperanto.

What is a retejo exactly? How is it different from retpaĝo?

Both are related to the internet, but they’re not the same thing.

retejo
- reto = net / internet
- -ejo = place
- So retejo literally = “internet-place” → a website / web site as a whole, like example.com with all its pages.
retpaĝo
- paĝo = page
- retpaĝo = a web page, one specific page within a site.

So in this sentence:

Ŝi malfermas retejon kun novaĵoj…
→ She is opening a whole website whose content is news.

If you said Ŝi malfermas retpaĝon, that would suggest she’s opening a single web page, which is usually not what we mean when we talk about starting a new site.

Why does it say retejon kun novaĵoj (“website with news”) instead of something like novaĵretejon or retejon pri novaĵoj?

All of these are possible, but they have slightly different emphases.

retejon kun novaĵoj
- Literally: a website with news.
- Emphasizes that the site has news as part of its content. Nice, simple structure.
novaĵretejon
- A compound: novaĵ- (news) + retejo (website).
- Means a news website, very compact.
- Slightly more “label-like” (it names the type of site).
retejon pri novaĵoj
- Literally: a website about news.
- Focuses on the topic (subject matter), using pri = “about, concerning”.

In normal usage:

novaĵretejo is the neat compound term for a “news site”.
retejo kun novaĵoj is a more descriptive way to say the same idea.
retejo pri novaĵoj sounds more like “a site whose topic is news” (e.g. discussing news, commenting on news).

The sentence’s version is perfectly natural; it just chooses kun instead of a compound or pri.

Why is novaĵoj plural? In English, “news” is uncountable.

In Esperanto, novaĵo literally means a piece of news / a news item. The plural novaĵoj means news items, and this is how “news” is almost always expressed.

novaĵo = one news item
novaĵoj = news (in general, many items)

So a retejo kun novaĵoj is literally “a website with news items,” which naturally corresponds to “a website with news” in English.

In sed mi preferas la gazeton, why do we use sed here? Could we use tamen instead?

sed means but, introducing a contrast between two statements:
- She is doing one thing (opening a news website),
- but I do something else (I prefer the newspaper).
tamen means however / nevertheless / yet. It’s an adverb, not a conjunction, so it doesn’t join clauses directly.

You could say something like:

Ŝi malfermas retejon kun novaĵoj. Tamen mi preferas la gazeton.
→ Two sentences: “She is opening a website with news. However, I prefer the newspaper.”

But inside a single sentence with two clauses, sed is the natural choice:

Ŝi malfermas retejon kun novaĵoj, sed mi preferas la gazeton.

So sed connects the clauses; tamen comments on the second clause.

Why is it la gazeton with la? Are we talking about one specific newspaper?

Yes, the la normally points to a specific, known thing.

la gazeton = the newspaper (a particular one both speaker and listener can identify: maybe the daily paper they subscribe to)
gazeton (without la) would be a newspaper, unspecified.

In context, mi preferas la gazeton most naturally means:

“I prefer the newspaper (that we already know about, or the usual/local/regular paper).”

If you wanted to talk about newspapers in general as a medium, you’d more likely say:

Mi preferas gazetojn. = I prefer newspapers (in general).

So the article la isn’t just copied from English; it really adds the idea of this particular newspaper.

Could I say Mi preferas gazetojn instead of mi preferas la gazeton? What would be the difference?

Yes, you can, and it changes the meaning slightly:

Mi preferas la gazeton.
- I prefer the newspaper (a specific one we have in mind).
Mi preferas gazetojn.
- I prefer newspapers in general, as a type of medium, compared for example to websites, TV, radio, etc.

So the original sentence contrasts:

Her action: opening a specific kind of website,
My preference: a particular newspaper (perhaps the one I usually read).

If the point is just “websites vs newspapers as media,” Mi preferas gazetojn would be more typical.

Could this sentence also be Ŝi malfermas novaĵretejon, sed mi preferas la gazeton? Would that be better?

Yes, that’s a very natural alternative:

Ŝi malfermas novaĵretejon, sed mi preferas la gazeton.

Here:

novaĵretejon is a compound meaning news website.
It sounds concise and idiomatic, especially in written Esperanto.

Which is “better” depends on style:

retejon kun novaĵoj is more descriptive and slightly more “spoken-style”.
novaĵretejon is more compact and technical-sounding.

Both are correct and natural.

Is the word order fixed? Could I say Mi preferas la gazeton, sed ŝi malfermas retejon kun novaĵoj?

Yes, you can absolutely switch the clauses:

Mi preferas la gazeton, sed ŝi malfermas retejon kun novaĵoj.

Word order in Esperanto is quite flexible, as long as:

the verb forms are clear, and
the roles of subject and object are clear (which is helped by endings like -n).

Changing the order here just changes the emphasis a little. The original emphasizes her action first; the alternative emphasizes my preference first. Grammatically, both are fine.

Why not use a continuous form like Ŝi estas malfermanta retejon instead of Ŝi malfermas retejon?

In Esperanto:

Ŝi malfermas retejon is already enough to mean “she is opening a website” in normal context.
The form Ŝi estas malfermanta retejon is grammatical, but it’s usually reserved for when you really want to emphasize the ongoing, in-progress nature of the action.

For most everyday purposes:

Simple present (malfermas) covers both “opens” and “is opening”.
Progressive constructions (estas malfermanta) are possible but not needed nearly as often as in English.

So the simpler Ŝi malfermas retejon is preferred in typical Esperanto style.

What exactly does gazeto mean? Is it only “newspaper”, or can it also mean “magazine”?

In Esperanto, gazeto is a general term for a periodical publication. It can include:

a newspaper
a magazine / journal
sometimes even a newsletter or bulletin

Context usually tells you whether it’s more like a daily newspaper or more like a magazine. If you specifically want to say “newspaper”, both gazeto and ĵurnalo are used, though gazeto is very common.

So in this sentence, la gazeton is best understood as “the newspaper”, but technically it could also be “the magazine” if the context around it made that clearer.