Esperanto · Chapter 1 · Lesson 25 · Themed review
Kion oni faras
The fifteen verbs of the first hundred words, in one place. Chapter 1 is almost entirely function words and verbs, so this is the session that shows you how much you can already say.
Practise this lesson
15-word session
A quick mix of exercises - recognise, recall, type and build each word. Miss one and it comes back round until it sticks.
Worth knowing
Fifteen verbs is a working vocabulary
The first hundred words of Esperanto contain six nouns. Six. , , , , , , and that is the lot.
It contains fifteen verbs.
That imbalance is not an accident of this course; it is what the frequency list says. Esperanto running text, like any other language's, is mostly held together by words that do work rather than words that name things. And it means something quite cheering: you can build sentences long before you can name what is in them.
The fifteen
Sorted by what they are for, rather than by rank.
The three that carry other verbs. These come before an infinitive and are the ones you will reach for most:
- to be able. Mi paroli. I can speak.
- must. Mi iri. I have to go.
- to want. Mi vidi. I want to see.
Note what follows each: the plain -i form. , not mi volas parolas. This is the single most common early slip.
The two that do everything. (to be) and (to have) are rank 5 and 48, and between them they carry an enormous share of ordinary sentences.
Saying and thinking. (to say), (to speak), (to think), (to know).
The pair worth pinning down is and . takes what was said: mi tion, I say that. takes the activity: mi Esperante, I speak Esperanto. English blurs this, so it is worth a moment.
Seeing. (to see) and (to look at). Same distinction as English see and watch: happens to you, is something you do on purpose.
Moving and being. (to come), (to go), (to live), and (to do, to make).
Why this matters more in Esperanto
In a natural language a list of fifteen verbs would be a list of fifteen verbs. Here it is not, because each one is a root and roots take endings.
gives you vido (sight), vida (visual), vide (visually), (seeing), (having seen), (to see again), a (invisible). None of those needed teaching.
Run that over fifteen verbs and the chapter you thought was thin turns out to be the most productive hundred words in the course.
Try it
Every one of these is built from the fifteen and the function words around them:
. - I want to know.
? - Can you come?
, . - He says that she has to go.
. - We see and we think.
? - What are you doing?
Five sentences, no nouns, and all of them are things you would genuinely say.