Breakdown of Matene, antaŭ ol ni iras al la oficejo, ni vidas multajn birdojn flugi.
Questions & Answers about Matene, antaŭ ol ni iras al la oficejo, ni vidas multajn birdojn flugi.
Matene is an adverb meaning “in the morning / during the morning (generally)”.
Matene = “in the morning” as a general, habitual time.
- Matene mi trinkas kafon. = I drink coffee in the mornings.
En la mateno = “in the morning” as a more concrete time, often a specific morning or a more “noun-like” expression.
- En la mateno mi havos kunvenon. = In the morning I will have a meeting (e.g. tomorrow morning).
In your sentence, Matene, antaŭ ol ni iras… describes a habitual routine, so the adverb Matene is very natural. Using En la mateno would not be wrong, but it would sound more like you’re talking about a specific morning.
The comma after Matene separates a fronted time expression from the rest of the sentence. It’s similar to:
- In the morning, before we go to the office, we see many birds flying.
In Esperanto, commas are often used where English might or might not use them, especially:
- after sentence-initial adverbials (Matene, Hodiaŭ, Poste, etc.)
- before many conjunctions introducing clauses (ke, ĉar, kvankam, often antaŭ ol when it starts a full clause)
So Matene, antaŭ ol ni iras al la oficejo, ni vidas… is very normal and clear punctuation, though some writers might sometimes omit one of the commas in less formal text.