"Excuse me, I am a man."

Translation: Pardonon, mi estas viro.

[AnCatDubh]

Including the imperative and ‘min’ this early without explaining them first is a bit underhanded.

[vacker13]

why is pardonu and not pardonas or pardoni? not sure why and how to use the u in the verbs.

[DavidStarner]

Pardonu is the command form, whereas pardonas is the present tense and pardoni is the infinitive. If you're telling someone to do something (e.g. pardon me), you use the -u.

[Trovanto]

Are "pardonon" and "pardonu" in this context short for "mi petas pardonon" and "pardonu min" ?

[Rae.F]

I believe so, yes.

[memyself9]

Why can't it be "mi viras" instead of "mi estas viro"?

[Rae.F]

I think it's only adjectives that can be verbed, not nouns.

[zerozeroone]

You can use a noun as a verb. Or, more accurately, you can derive a verb based on a root that's a noun (or nominal root for the English majors).

For example, (from the dictionary at http://en.lernu.net/index.php):
broso (bros·o) brush
brosi (bros·i ← bros·o) (tr) to brush

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto_grammar#Parts_of_speech

[Rae.F]

Dankon!

[timothyverma]

Would "viron estas mi" make sense?

[Rae.F]

"Viro estas mi" would put emphasis on "viro". Since "esti" is a copula, "viro" is a subject complement and not a direct object and does not take -n.