The Esperanto Accusative: What -n Does, and Its Four Jobs

Add -n to the direct object of the verb, the thing the verb lands on. The subject never takes it.

Homo gains -n when it is the one being seen and loses it when it does the seeing:

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1. 1Mi donas
2. 2la libron
3. 3al vi

Mi donas la libron al vi: the book is what the verb lands on, so it takes -n; the person receiving it gets al, never -n.

You already do this, on a handful of words

English marks the object too, but only on pronouns:

Nobody says him saw I. That instinct is the accusative. What English lost is the marking on nouns: the cat is the cat whether it sees or is seen, so English fixes the word order instead. Esperanto kept the ending, on every noun, adjective and pronoun:

• Mi vidas lin. - I see him. (English marks it too)
• Mi vidas la viron. - I see the man. (English does not)

What it buys you: word order stops mattering

In English, position is the only thing telling these apart: the dog bit the man, the man bit the dog. In Esperanto the ending carries it, so all three of these mean the dog bit the man:

• La hundo mordis la viron. - The dog bit the man.
• La viron mordis la hundo. - The dog bit the man. (stress on the man)

Viron has the -n, so the man got bitten wherever he sits in the line. In everyday speech the plain order, subject then verb then object, is still the usual one; the freedom is for emphasis.

Adjectives and plurals agree

Everything describing the object is marked too. The plural -j comes first, then -n:

• Mi vidas la bonajn homojn. - I see the good people.

It is one decision made on each word, and it means an adjective can sit half a sentence from its noun and stay unambiguous.

The four jobs of -n

The object is the first job and by far the commonest. The same ending does three more:

Job two: movement towards

After a preposition of place, -n turns position into direction:

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1. 1Li iras en la domon.
2. 2Li estas en la domo.

Same man, same en: walking into the house takes -n, being in it does not.

• Mi metas ĝin sur la tablon. - I put it onto the table.
• La kato estas sub la tablo. - The cat is under the table.

English has in/into and on/onto, then runs out. Esperanto handles every place preposition the same way. Prepositions that already mean direction, such as al, el and ĝis, never take -n:

• Mi iras al la domo. - I am going to the house.
• Ŝi venis el la domo. - She came out of the house.
• Ni iris ĝis la vojo. - We went as far as the road.

Job three: measurement and extent

-n also marks how much: a price, a distance, a duration, a weight, an age. Nothing is being acted on; it is a measure, and Esperanto marks it the same way:

• Ĝi estas du metrojn alta. - It is two metres tall.
• Ĝi kostas dek eŭrojn. - It costs ten euros.
• Mi atendis unu horon. - I waited one hour.

The object test, what is being verbed?, comes back empty here. The working question is different: if the phrase answers how much, how far, how long or how old, it takes -n.

Job four: time and date

Esperanto can mark a point in time with a preposition: je for a clock time, en for a stretch. Drop the preposition and -n does the same work:

• Mi venos lundon. - I will come on Monday.
• Ni venos la venontan semajnon. - We will come next week.
• Ŝi venos la kvinan de majo. - She will come on 5 May.

Lundon and je lundo mean the same; the -n form is the crisp, everyday one for days and dates. The whole phrase agrees as an object would, with -n on the words that carry the date and none on majo, which sits behind de. (More in time expressions.)

Where -n never goes

Esti and iĝi link two descriptions of the same thing, so there is no object for -n to mark.

Mistakes English speakers make

The usual slip is forgetting -n on the second noun of a longer sentence. The cure is mechanical: ask what is being verbed? Whatever answers takes -n, and so does every word describing it.

What to do next

1. Write three sentences with vidas and a different object each.
2. Say each one again with the object first: La homon mi vidas.
3. Then read tricky prepositions for the direction -n in depth.

See also

• Tricky prepositions - the direction -n seen from the preposition's side.
• Time expressions - dates and days with the time -n: lundon, la unuan de marto.
• Word order and style - what you can do with the freedom the -n buys you.
• Personal pronouns - min, lin, ilin: the -n on every pronoun.