La kinejo estas proksime.

to be

Breakdown of La kinejo estas proksime.

• la: the
• proksime: near
• kinejo: the cinema

Questions & Answers about La kinejo estas proksime.

Why is it la kinejo and not just kinejo?

La is the definite article, meaning the.

So la kinejo = the cinema / the movie theater.

In Esperanto, la is used when you mean a specific thing that is known from the context, just like the in English. If you said just kinejo, that would mean a cinema or simply cinema in a more general sense, depending on context.

A useful point: Esperanto has la for the, but it does not have a separate word for a/an.

What does kinejo literally mean?

Kinejo can be broken into parts:

• kin- = cinema / film
• -ej- = place for something
• -o = noun ending

So kinejo literally means a place for films/cinema, which is why it means cinema or movie theater.

This is very common in Esperanto:

• lerni = to learn
• lernejo = school, literally learning-place

What does estas mean here?