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Esperanto grammar Part of Chapter 2

CEFR A1-A2

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Test yourself (25 questions)

Esperanto Nouns and Adjectives: -o, -a and Agreement

By Michael McGettrickUpdated 11 October 2026

An Esperanto noun ends in -o, an adjective in -a, and the adjective copies whatever its noun wears: -j for more than one, -n for the object. No gender, no declension classes. Four forms make the whole paradigm, and here they are.

-o / -aplural -jobject -nWhat do the colours mean?
SubjectObject
one
several

Quick check

Now use it: three quick questions on the chart above. The full practice is further down.

Pick the right one

0/3

Pick the form that agrees. -j on the noun means -j on the adjective; -n on the noun means -n on the adjective.

  1. Mi vidis la hundojn. (I saw the beautiful dogs)

  2. La hundoj dormas. (the beautiful dogs are sleeping)

  3. Ŝi legas libron. (she is reading a long book)

The same four in sentences:

FormEsperantoEnglish
one, subject .The beautiful dog is sleeping.
several, subject .The beautiful dogs are sleeping.
one, object .I saw the beautiful dog.
several, object .I saw the beautiful dogs.

-o and -a: the whole system

Every noun wears -o and every adjective wears -a. The ending is the label:

NounAdjective
dog beautiful
book big
water warm
  • . - The water is warm.

There is no gender to learn with a noun, and the adjective never changes for one. is the same beside a man and a woman:

  • - a good man
  • - a good woman

Swap the ending and the root changes job: is beautiful, beauty (a beautiful thing), beautifully. Word endings has all four.

The four forms: walk the paradigm

Two endings can attach to the noun: -j for the plural and -n for the accusative, the object. The adjective copies both, and they always come in that order, -jn, never -.

bela hundo, belaj hundoj, belajn hundojn: a beautiful dog, beautiful dogs, beautiful dogs (object)

Whatever the noun wears, the adjective wears. English adjectives have not changed for number or case for centuries, so the instinct is that has said its piece. It has not:

  • . - She is reading a good book.
  • . - We bought new books.

Agreement is what pays for Esperanto's free word order. The endings, not the positions, say which adjective belongs to which noun and who did what:

Slot 1
Slot 2
Slot 3
.
.
  • . - The big man saw the small boy.
  • . - The big man saw the small boy. (the boy fronted)

Both say the same thing: -n on marks the one who was seen, wherever it stands.

Position: bela hundo, hundo bela

The default is adjective first, as in English. Adjective after is fully grammatical and marked: a small spotlight on the quality, common in poetry and song.

OrderEsperantoEnglish
neutral a beautiful dog
marked a dog, and a beautiful one
marked, prose .That was a truly beautiful day.

Position never touches the endings:

  • . - I saw beautiful dogs.

Write by default; when you write , mean it. Word order and style covers what marked orders signal.

Predicative vs attributive: where -n never goes

An adjective has two jobs. Attached to its noun it is attributive: . Linked to the subject through esti it is predicative: .

SubjectEsperantoEnglish
one .The dog is beautiful.
several .The dogs are beautiful.
Four faces: a girl grinning with sparkles and a heart (happy); a yawning boy with heavy eyelids under a moon (tired); a girl with a cold compress, a thermometer and a scarf (ill); a curly-haired boy frowning with steam puffing from his head (angry).
  1. .
  2. .
  3. .
  4. .

How someone is: estas plus a plain -a adjective, never -n.

-n marks objects, and a predicate adjective is not an object: it describes the subject, and subjects take no -n. The same holds after the other linking verbs:

VerbEsperantoEnglish
.The days became long.
.She seems happy.
.They stayed good.

The -n that changes the meaning: trovis la hundon bela

When an adjective follows a direct object, both -n and no -n are grammatical, and they say different things:

SaysEsperantoEnglish
which dog .I found the beautiful dog.
a judgement .I found the dog beautiful.
which door .She painted the red door.
the result .She painted the door red.

With -n, the adjective belongs to the noun and identifies which one: the dog that is beautiful, the door that was already red. Without -n, it says what the verb did to the object: your judgement of the dog, the redness as the result.

When adjectives do not agree at all

Agreement needs a noun or pronoun to agree with. With the weather, an infinitive or a clause as the subject there is none, and the -e adverb ending takes over:

  • . - It is warm.
  • . - Learning Esperanto is easy.
Four panels: a grinning sun over an ice cream for sunny and hot; a grey cloud with rain falling on a red umbrella for rainy; a white cloud, snowflakes and a snowman for snowy and cold; a puffing cloud blowing wind and leaves at a bending tree for windy.
  1. .
  2. .

Weather has no noun to agree with, so the -e ending: estas varme, estas malvarme.

With a real noun as the subject, the -a comes back:

  • . - The soup is warm.

The full boundary is in adverbs; and its friends are in quantity.

Mistakes English speakers make

WrongRightWhy
the adjective copies -j and -n
belanj the order is always -jn
. .after , -n never goes
. .number still agrees after
. .weather: no noun to agree with, so -e

What to do next

  1. Say the four forms of aloud until stops feeling like a typo.
  2. Write three sentences with and a plural subject, checking each adjective has -j and no -n.
  3. Read the accusative for the other jobs -n does.

See also

  • Word endings - the -o, -a, -e, -i system these two endings come from.
  • The accusative - the -n itself: what it marks, and the direction sense.
  • Adverbs - the -e side of the border: .
  • The article la - the little word in front of all four forms.

Practise: test yourself

Pick the right one

0/6

Pick the form that agrees. -j on the noun means -j on the adjective; -n on the noun means -n on the adjective.

  1. Mi vidis la hundojn. (I saw the beautiful dogs)

  2. La hundoj dormas. (the beautiful dogs are sleeping)

  3. Ŝi legas libron. (she is reading a long book)

  4. Li aĉetis pomojn. (he bought red apples)

  5. La infano manĝas. (the happy child is eating)

  6. Ni vidis montojn. (we saw high mountains)

Build the word

0/4

Build the adjective so it agrees with the noun in brackets.

  1. beautiful + (hundoj, subject)

    Accents optional - cx, gx, ux work for ĉ, ĝ, ŭ

    Your word is empty.

  2. beautiful + (hundon, object)

    Accents optional - cx, gx, ux work for ĉ, ĝ, ŭ

    Your word is empty.

  3. new + (librojn, object, several)

    Accents optional - cx, gx, ux work for ĉ, ĝ, ŭ

    Your word is empty.

  4. black + (kato, subject)

    Accents optional - cx, gx, ux work for ĉ, ĝ, ŭ

    Your word is empty.

Spot the mistake

0/4

Each sentence has one adjective with the wrong ending. Tap it.

Pick the right one

0/6

After estas the adjective never takes -n. After an object, -n changes the meaning: read the English.

  1. La hundo estas . (the dog is beautiful)

  2. La pomoj estas . (the apples are red)

  3. Mi trovis la hundon . (I found the dog beautiful - my judgement)

  4. Mi trovis la hundon. (I found the beautiful dog - I located it)

  5. Ŝi farbis la pordon . (she painted the door red - the result)

  6. Ŝi farbis la pordon. (she painted the red door - it was already red)

Translation drill

0/5

Translate into Esperanto. Number and case on the noun, echoed on the adjective, except after estas, where -n never goes.

  1. The beautiful dog is sleeping.

  2. I saw the beautiful dogs.

  3. The dogs are beautiful.

  4. She is reading a good book.

  5. I found the dog beautiful.

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Practice worksheets and infographics

Practice worksheets with answer keys built in, plus infographic and listicle formats. Open any one to view, print or save.

Infographics

  1. Key points infographic
  2. Table 1
  3. Table 2
  4. -o and -a: the whole system
  5. Position: bela hundo, hundo bela
  6. Predicative vs attributive: where -n never goes
  7. Predicative vs attributive: where -n never goes
  8. The -n that changes the meaning: trovis la hundon bela
  9. Mistakes English speakers make

Other formats

  1. Listicle

Related grammar

Frequently asked questions

Why does the adjective take -n in ?
Because Esperanto adjectives agree with their noun in case as well as number. is a plural object, so it wears -j and -n, and copies both. The echo is what lets the adjective sit anywhere in the sentence and still show which noun it belongs to.
Does the adjective still agree when it comes after the noun?
Yes, always. Agreement follows the grammar, not the word order: , , . Position changes the emphasis, never the endings. Number agreement survives any distance too: .
Is it or ?
, without fail. An adjective after describes the subject, and subjects never take -n, so nothing agreeing with them does either. Number still applies ( ), but -n never does. The same holds after , and (become, seem, remain).
What is the difference between and ?
Meaning, not correctness: both are grammatical. With -n, belongs to : I found the beautiful dog, the beautiful one. Without -n, describes the object as a judgement: I found the dog beautiful. The same contrast gives (she painted the red door, already red) against (she painted the door red).
When does an Esperanto adjective not agree at all?
When there is no noun or pronoun to agree with. Then the sentence takes the -e adverb ending instead: (it is warm), (learning Esperanto is easy). The subject is nothing, an infinitive or a clause, so there is no noun for an -a form to describe. The adverbs article has the full boundary.