Esperanto · Chapter 26 · Lesson 8 · Grammar primer
Which preposition does the verb want?
Verb government, the systematic pain point: pensi PRI, dependi DE, danki AL iu PRO io - a 31-verb reference table with citations, the accusative as universal joint, and the folk pairings that turn out not to exist.
The short version
The preposition belongs to the verb
You think PRI something, depend DE it, thank AL the person PRO the favour. The preposition is part of the verb, the way English phrasal verbs work - and guessing from English fails often enough to be worth a table. The good news: the accusative is a universal joint, and the Ekzercaro itself blesses obei al la patro and obei la patron equally.
Mi pensas pri vi. / Mi dankas al vi pro la helpo.
Je: the official shrug
Rule 14 of the Fundamento creates je, a preposition with no meaning of its own, for exactly the moments when no other preposition feels right: je la tria horo, kredi je Dio, preni iun je la mano. Zamenhof built the escape hatch into the constitution. Use it without guilt - that is what it is for.
Ni renkontigxos je la oka.
That's the gist. The full article goes deeper - more examples, the edge cases, the why - and the practice below scores like a vocabulary session and earns the same XP.
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