imponi

A false friend, and a sharp one for English speakers. Imponi looks like impose and is not: it means to impress somebody favourably, to strike them as grand or formidable. Nothing about it involves forcing anything on anybody. The Esperanto for imposing something on someone is trudi, a different root entirely, and mixing them up turns a compliment into an accusation.

Two grammatical points follow from the meaning. First, imponi is intransitive and takes al: you impress to somebody, imponi al iu. La domo imponis al ni, not the direct object you would expect from English. Second, the impressive thing is the subject, so it is the building, the work or the courage that does the verb, and the person impressed is the one in the al phrase.

Beside it, admiri runs the other way round, with the person as subject: ni admiris la domon. And impona is the adjective, the one for a building or a beard that makes you stop and look. More of this class, and how to spot them before they bite, in falsaj amikoj.