Esperanto · Chapter 2 · Lesson 4 · Grammar primer
The accusative: what -n does
The one piece of Esperanto grammar English gives you no instinct for - and the one that lets you put words in any order you like.
The short version
-n marks whatever the verb lands on
Add -n to the direct object: mi vidas la homon, I see the person. The subject never takes it. This is the one piece of Esperanto grammar an English speaker has no instinct for, because English kept the marking on only five pronouns, me, him, her, us and them, and gave up on nouns entirely. The test is mechanical: ask what is being verbed.
Mi vidas la homon.
Adjectives and plurals agree, so you get -jn
Everything describing the object gets marked too, with the plural -j first and the -n after it: la bonajn homojn, the good people as an object. It looks like a lot of endings and it is really one decision made twice. What it buys is that an adjective can sit half a sentence away from its noun and still be unambiguous.
la bonajn homojn
After a place preposition, -n means towards
The same ending switches position into direction. Mi estas en la domo is I am in the house; mi iras en la domon is I go into the house. English has in and into, on and onto, then runs out of pairs and falls back on phrases like to underneath the table. Esperanto handles every preposition the same way with one ending.
Mi iras en la domon.
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