Breakdown of En vintro la tago komenciĝas malfrue.
Questions & Answers about En vintro la tago komenciĝas malfrue.
Both patterns exist, but they don’t mean quite the same thing:
en vintro = in winter (in wintertime in general)
This sounds more generic, like a general statement about what typically happens during winter as a season.en la vintro = in the winter
This tends to sound a bit more specific: the winter in a given year, or winter as a particular, known period.
So in your sentence, en vintro la tago komenciĝas malfrue is talking about what is generally true in wintertime, not about one specific winter.
Many Esperantists also like to say vintre la tago komenciĝas malfrue, using the -e form instead of en vintro. That means essentially the same thing: in winter(wintertime), the day begins late.
In Esperanto, prepositions normally go with the basic form of the noun (without -n):
- en vintro – in winter
- en la domo – in the house
The accusative -n is used mainly to show:
Direct objects:
- Mi legas la libron. – I’m reading the book.
Direction / motion toward a place, sometimes instead of adding another word like al:
- Li iras en la domon. – He goes into the house.
(Contrast: Li estas en la domo. – He is in the house.)
- Li iras en la domon. – He goes into the house.
In en vintro, we are not expressing motion “into” winter; it’s just a time setting, so we use vintro, not vintron.
The difference comes from the endings -ig- and -iĝ- in Esperanto.
komenci = to begin something (transitive; needs an object)
- La instruisto komencas la lecionon. – The teacher begins the lesson.
komenciĝi = to begin, to start (by itself) (intransitive; no object)
- La leciono komenciĝas. – The lesson begins.
In your sentence:
- la tago komenciĝas malfrue = the day begins late
The day isn’t beginning something else; the day itself is the thing that begins. So the intransitive komenciĝi is the natural choice.
Using la tago komencas malfrue would sound like “the day begins (something) late”, and native-style Esperanto almost never uses komenci that way without an object.
Yes, that’s the normal pattern:
- komenci – transitive: to start something
- Ili komencas la filmon. – They start the film.
- komenciĝi – intransitive: to start, to get started
- La filmo komenciĝas je la sepa. – The film starts at seven.
This is a very regular pattern in Esperanto:
- fermi – to close (something)
fermiĝi – to become closed, to close (by itself) - malfermi – to open (something)
malfermiĝi – to become open, to open (by itself) - varmigi – to heat (something)
varmiĝi – to become warm
So komenciĝas fits that same -iĝ- pattern: “the day begins (itself)”.
The endings matter:
- -a → adjective (describes a noun: what kind of thing?)
- -e → adverb (describes a verb, adjective, or another adverb: how? in what way? when?)
In your sentence:
- Verb: komenciĝas – begins
- We want to say how / when it begins → late
So we need an adverb:
- malfrua – late (as an adjective)
- malfrua trajno – a late train (a train that is late)
- malfrue – late (as an adverb)
- La trajno alvenis malfrue. – The train arrived late.
Therefore:
La tago komenciĝas malfrue. – The day begins late.
Esperanto builds words from smaller pieces:
- frua – early (adjective)
- frue – early (adverb)
The prefix mal- means “the exact opposite of”:
- bona → malbona (good → bad)
- alta → malalta (tall → short/low)
- frue → malfrue (early → late)
So malfrue literally means “not-early(ly)”, i.e. late, and it’s an adverb describing when/ how the day begins.
No, that would be incorrect in normal Esperanto.
- komenciĝas is the verb.
- We need a word that tells us how / when it begins → adverb → -e.
- malfrua is an adjective, used to describe a noun (e.g. malfrua trajno).
So:
- ✗ La tago komenciĝas malfrua. (wrong form here)
- ✓ La tago komenciĝas malfrue. (correct)
Yes. Esperanto word order is quite flexible, especially when the roles are clear.
All of these are grammatical and mean essentially the same:
- En vintro la tago komenciĝas malfrue.
- La tago komenciĝas malfrue en vintro.
- La tago en vintro komenciĝas malfrue.
Differences are mostly about emphasis and flow:
- Starting with En vintro highlights the time: As for winter, the day begins late.
- Putting en vintro at the end is a bit closer to typical English order: The day begins late in winter.
All are acceptable; style and context decide which sounds best.
In Esperanto, la is the (definite article), and it’s used more systematically than in English.
- tago = a day, some day or other
- la tago = the day (a specific or known day)
In your sentence, we mean the day as a daily cycle (the daylight part of a typical 24-hour period), not just “some random day”. So we talk about la tago – the day in contrast to the night, etc.
This is similar to English when we say:
- In winter, *the day begins late and the night is long.*
We don’t say “a day begins late” for this general, habitual truth.
You can say it, but there is a nuance:
- en vintro – literally in winter, focusing on winter as a time period or “environment”.
- dum vintro – literally during winter, focusing a bit more on the duration (throughout the time that is winter).
In practice, for a sentence like this, they are very close in meaning, and both are understandable:
- En vintro la tago komenciĝas malfrue.
- Dum vintro la tago komenciĝas malfrue.
Many speakers would find dum la vintro more natural than dum vintro. A very elegant, idiomatic alternative is:
- Vintre la tago komenciĝas malfrue. – In winter, the day begins late.
Key points:
- ĝ is pronounced like the “j” in “judge” or “George”.
- Stress in Esperanto words is always on the second-to-last syllable.
Break komenciĝas into syllables:
ko-men-CI-ĝas
- ko – like “ko” in “cobalt”
- men – like “men” in English
- ci – “tsi” (because c = “ts”, i = “ee”)
- ĝas – “jahs” with ĝ as in “judge”
Stress: ko-MEN-ci-ĝas → the MEN syllable gets the stress.
So you say roughly: ko-MEN-tsi-jahs.