Ch 22 · Lesson 25Esperanto · Chapter 22 · Lesson 25 · Themed review
Kongresoj kaj gastoj
Register, travel, meet, sleep. The words for going to the Esperanto world - the congress and - and the -igx- and -ig- pair that gets you signed up and put up.
Practise this lesson
17-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
Aliĝi, gastigi: the words for going to the Esperanto world
Esperanto has no country, so its speakers built the next best thing: places to meet, and beds to sleep in. This session's words are the vocabulary of getting there, and two suffixes do most of the work.
The congress
The first Universala Kongreso met at Boulogne-sur-Mer in August 1905, and the congress has moved from country to country since. The 112th is set for Melbourne, 3-10 July 2027. Below it sit national congresses and the youth congress, the IJK, which TEJO, the movement's youth organisation, lists among its own activities.
Going to one is a short chain of verbs. First you : - (to), -- (become), -i. To become attached to something, which is what registering is. Then you arrive with your and your , read the , sit through a (a talk) and go on an . And everywhere you people. Add -- and you get i, to meet up, and o, a gathering: a meeting that comes about rather than one somebody does to you. Weekend events across the Esperanto world are called exactly that.
The bed
Pasporta Servo has run since 1974. Its own site lists more than 2,400 hosts in 121 countries, in 1,801 cities, who will put up a travelling Esperanto speaker for free. TEJO runs it too.
The verb is --, the other half of the pair: is a guest, and is to make someone your guest, to host them. The host is a , the person doing the hosting. You do not need a or an from a booking site: you need a , a and the language. The site is blunt about it: it is a service for Esperantists, so at the very least you must know Esperanto, and if you can read that sentence on its front page you have already met the requirement.
Put it together
. - I registered for the congress and bought a ticket.
? - Can I sleep at your place for two nights?
Post is . - After the talk we met up in the delegate's room.
Sources
- Unua Universala Kongreso de Esperanto (1905) Deklaracio pri la esenco de la Esperantismo, adopted at Boulogne-sur-Mer, 9 August 1905. Available at: https://eo.wikisource.org/wiki/Bulonja_deklaracio (Accessed: 7 October 2026).
- Universala Esperanto-Asocio (2026) Kongresoj. Available at: https://uea.org/kongresoj (Accessed: 7 October 2026).
- Pasporta Servo (2026) Pasporta Servo. Available at: https://www.pasportaservo.org/ (Accessed: 7 October 2026).
- TEJO (2026) Tutmonda Esperantista Junulara Organizo. Available at: https://www.tejo.org/ (Accessed: 7 October 2026).