37 Comments
dang it, i was hoping nobody made a johnny cash reference yet! well played =)
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"Vestaĵoj" is a bit confusing. I've seen "vesto" defined as "clothing" in other places, and "-aĵ" has so far only been used relating to food. I had to look at outside resources to understand why this didn't mean something like "edible clothing".
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Sounds like you already figured it out, but for other people reading this:
The -aĵo suffix means "something made from or possessing the quality of"
porko (pig) ⇒ porkaĵo (something made out of pig = pork)
nova (new) ⇒ novaĵoj (things that are new = the news)
vesti (to clothe) ⇒ vestaĵo (something with which one clothes = a piece of clothing)
CloudeAytr made great a more in depth post about it here: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/8849511
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I thought clothes in Esperanto was singular like the Spanish ropa.
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The suffix "-aĵ" means "thing", so singular "vestaĵo" means "piece/article of clothing". That's why "clothes" is translated with the plural "vestaĵoj".
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In this case the -j is matching the pronoun with its plural noun, vestaĵoj.
His shoe: "Lia ŝuo"
His shoes: "Liaj ŝuoj"
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It's modeled on how the Romance languages work. I see you're also learning Italian. It's the same rule. All adjectives must agree with the noun they modify, and this includes possessives. The only difference is that Esperanto only has one form of "the" and no gender.
ITALIAN:
la mia scarpa è piccola = my shoe is small
le mie scarpe sono piccole = my shoes are small
il mio gatto è piccolo = my cat is small
i miei gatti sono piccoli = my cats are small
ESPERANTO:
mia ŝuo estas malgranda = my shoe is small
miaj ŝuoj estas malgrandaj = my shoes are small
mia kato estas malgranda = my cat is small
miaj katoj estas malgrandaj = my cats are small
Thanks, your esperanto table helped. I am still uncertain on the explanation however. Why 'my' must change to plural, i cant see any logic behind this. Im not plural the cats are.
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As I said, possessives are a type of adjective, and all adjectives must agree with the noun it modifies. The first part of the word, mi, says that "I" am the owner. The last part of the word says whether my thing is singular or plural (and in Italian, whether the thing owned is masculine or feminine).
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I'm not entirely sure, but here's a link that explains -ajx.
http://a-complete-grammar-of-esperanto.t.ebooks2ebooks.com/92.html
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No, that would be iliaj. Liaj has a j on the end because it belongs to the plural noun vestaĵoj.
Thank you. Wow, I feel really silly forgetting about "ili". I guess my Spanish speaking brain was confusing it with "Los/Las".
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I keep mixing up Esperanto with Spanish and French words too, especially the Esperanto 'el' with the Spanish 'el', and the French 'il' with the Esperanto 'li'.
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His articles of clothing are black.. Weird way of phrasing it. I guess it's normal in Esperanto
