Learn Hardcore Esperanto: Hodiaŭ mi ricevis nek retpoŝton nek vorton de ŝi. - Today I have received neither an email nor a word from her.

nek already contains the idea of negation.
You use it twice, once before each item: nek retpoŝton nek vorton = “neither an email nor a word”.

You could say Mi ne ricevis retpoŝton aŭ vorton de ŝi, and people would understand, but it’s less precise and not the usual, clear pattern. nek … nek is the clean, idiomatic form for “neither … nor …”.

Why do retpoŝton and vorton end with -n?

The -n marks the accusative case, i.e. the direct object of the verb.

ricevi = “to receive” (transitive verb, it takes an object)
What did I receive? retpoŝton and vorton → both are direct objects → both get -n.

So:

Mi ricevis retpoŝton. – I received an email.
Mi ricevis vorton. – I received word / news.
Mi ricevis nek retpoŝton nek vorton. – I received neither an email nor any word.

Even though there is only one verb (ricevis), each object still takes -n.

Why is it vorton de ŝi? Isn’t that literally “a word from her”? How does that mean “any word / news from her”?

Yes, literally vorton de ŝi means “a word from her.”

In Esperanto, just like in English, “a word from someone” can idiomatically mean “some message or news from them.” So:

vorto = a word
vorto de ŝi = a word from her
ricevi vorton de ŝi ≈ “to hear from her / to get any message from her”

In this sentence, nek retpoŝton nek vorton de ŝi means: > I didn’t get an email from her, nor any other kind of message (word, news) from her.

Could I say hodiaŭ somewhere else in the sentence, like Mi hodiaŭ ricevis ...?

Yes. Esperanto word order is quite flexible, especially for adverbs like hodiaŭ.

All of these are grammatical and natural, with slightly different emphasis:

Hodiaŭ mi ricevis nek retpoŝton nek vorton de ŝi.
– Today (as for today), I received neither an email nor any word from her.
Mi hodiaŭ ricevis nek retpoŝton nek vorton de ŝi.
– I today received neither an email nor any word from her.
Mi ricevis hodiaŭ nek retpoŝton nek vorton de ŝi.
– I received today neither an email nor any word from her.

Putting hodiaŭ at the start is very common when you want to foreground the time: “As for today…”

Why isn’t there a ne before ricevis? Shouldn’t it be Hodiaŭ mi ne ricevis nek retpoŝton nek vorton de ŝi?

In nek ... nek, the nek itself already encodes negation, so you don’t need a separate ne before the verb.

Mi ricevis nek retpoŝton nek vorton. – I received neither an email nor any word.

You can sometimes see patterns like:

Mi ne ricevis nek retpoŝton nek vorton.

That’s understood, and not exactly “wrong,” but it’s usually considered redundant or stylistically less elegant. The clean form is:

[verb] nek X nek Y without ne.

Why is it ŝi and not ŝia? What’s the difference between de ŝi and ŝia here?

ŝi = she / her (subject or object form)
ŝia = her / hers (possessive adjective)

de ŝi literally means “from her” (or “of her”), using the preposition de:

retpoŝto de ŝi = an email from her
vorto de ŝi = a word from her

If you said ŝia vorto, that would be “her word” in a more possessive sense (her word as opposed to someone else’s), not the idea of a message coming from her.

In this sentence, we want “from her”, so we use de ŝi, not ŝia.

Does de ŝi apply to both retpoŝton and vorton, or only to vorton?

By default, de ŝi at the end of the phrase is understood to apply to both nouns:

nek retpoŝton nek vorton de ŝi ≈ “neither an email from her nor any word from her.”

If you wanted it to apply only to vorton, you’d usually clarify by repeating or restructuring, for example:

Hodiaŭ mi ricevis nek retpoŝton, nek vorton de ŝi,
which still tends to be read as “from her” for both, unless the broader context makes a contrast.

So in ordinary usage, listeners will assume “from her” covers both items.

Could I use aŭ instead of nek and say Mi ne ricevis retpoŝton aŭ vorton de ŝi?

You can say it, and people will understand, but nek … nek is the standard, unambiguous way to say “neither … nor …”.

Mi ne ricevis retpoŝton aŭ vorton de ŝi.
Literally: “I did not receive an email or a word from her.”
Logically this can be interpreted in a slightly looser way (especially in strict logical terms).
Mi ricevis nek retpoŝton nek vorton de ŝi.
Clearly: “I received neither an email nor any word from her.”
This leaves no doubt that you got neither of the two.

So for clean, idiomatic Esperanto, use nek … nek in this meaning.

Why are retpoŝton and vorton in the singular? Could I say retpoŝtojn or vortojn?

They’re singular simply because the speaker is talking about “an email” and “any word” in a generic, non‑counting way:

nek retpoŝton nek vorton ≈ neither (even) one email nor (even) one word.

You could say:

nek retpoŝtojn nek vortojn de ŝi – neither any emails nor any words from her

That would emphasize multiple possible messages. It’s grammatical, just a different nuance. The original sounds more like “I got nothing at all from her (not even one message).”

Why is the verb ricevis and not something like havis? What’s the nuance of ricevi here?

ricevi = to receive, to get something that comes to you (an email arrives, a letter is delivered, someone sends you news, etc.)
havi = to have, to be in possession of something.

In this context, we are talking about whether anything arrived from her:

Mi ricevis retpoŝton. – I received (got) an email.
Mi ne ricevis retpoŝton. – I did not receive an email.

Using havi would change the meaning:

Mi ne havis retpoŝton would sound more like “I didn’t have any email (in my inbox / available to me),” which is not exactly the same idea as nothing came from her today.

So ricevi is the natural verb for communications that you get from someone.