"La hundoj kaj katoj ludas nokte."

Translation: The dogs and cats play at night.

[arfarfar]

Sounds like a secret codeword

[AelienFelis]

... but they are worst enemies in the daylight.

[Orangus]

They play games against each other at night as well.

[MechFactions]

When do you use an adverb for time, and when do you use other forms?

[Luis_Domingos]

Esperanto is incredibly flexible with what you can do with it, so you can easily transform a base noun to an adverb by switching the ending to a -e (mateno > matene; tago > tage; vespero > vespere; nokto > nokte).

I'm not sure what other forms you're talking about.

[MechFactions]

Are there other ways to say 'at night"?

[Andi_M]

"dum la nokto" = during the night. "nokte" = "nightly", if this is permitted in English.

[Little_Snail]

I speak west coast american english, and to me 'nightly' ONLY means every night. But i understand, with some effort, 'nightly' in the adverb sense

[hellomidnight]

I don't think this should be translated into 'nightly', because in English the adverb 'nightly' has the very specific meaning of EVERY night. If you say "The dogs and cats play nightly" in English it's taken to mean the dogs and cats play every night. The Esperanto 'nokte' does not have this meaning, it means 'by night' or 'at night'.

[Andi_M]

Interesting, because the Esperanto "vendrede" more-or-less means "every friday" ("je vendredo" = "on friday"), but "nokte" less tends to mean "every night".
Well, even a planned language has things which are just defined-by-use. :-)

[tu.8zPhLD72zzoZN]

Oddly, this dictionary has "nightly" translated as "nokta" and "by night" or "at night" as "nokte". http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16967/16967-h/16967-h.htm#letterN

This dictionary has the same for "nokte", but has "nokta" mean "nocturnal". http://esperanto-panorama.net/vortaro/eoen.htm

....and this dictionary says that "nokte" means "dum nokto".
http://reta-vortaro.de/revo/

Also, "on Friday" does not mean "every Friday" which would be "on Fridays" but means instead "sometime during the 24 hour day of Friday".

To Philip Davis below:
I think "every night" would be "ĉiu nokto".
nokte is an adverb and I have never seen a plural adverb.
I am learning though, just like you and I await someone more knowledgeable.

[danielqsc]

"Every night", as an adverb, can be "ĉiunokte". By the way, "ĉiutage" means "every day". See some examples here: http://bertilow.com/pmeg/vortfarado/principoj/frazetvortigo.html#i-o8c

About Phillip_Davis' question: an adverb can never take the plural ending -j.

[Phillip_Davis]

Riffing on this, could "noktej" mean "nightly" in the sense of every night?

[MechFactions]

As Little_Snail says, 'nightly' means every night, while 'nighttime' can be used as an adjective: "I enjoy my nighttime running."

[csvicc_]

I think it's so amazing, how Esperanto mixes a lot of languages. It's fantastic, now it's less difficul learning the other languages!

[Yeticrossing]

Does this mean "The dogs (these ones) and cats (these ones) play at night" or "The dogs (these ones) and cats (in general) play at night"?

In english it's reasonable to assume that the dogs and cats are grouped together, with both being referred to by 'the', but is that also the case in Esperanto?

[WovenTales]

I've just started learning Esperanto myself, but looking at how Wikipedia pages are written, it seems like it's pretty common to use "la" on both but it's not necessary even when both sides are definite. Anyone with more experience want to chime in?

[professorsloth]

I'd say, when in doubt, put "la" in front of both. Explicit over implicit.

[Aderight27]

Why is it nokte and not nokto?

[KillTheFuture]

"Ili ludas nokton" would mean that they play "night" (which would presumably be the name of a game), whereas "ili ludas nokte" uses "night" as an adverb, meaning they play at night.

Similarly "ili ludas rapido" means they're playing speed (a card game), and "ili ludas rapide" is "they're playing speedily (or quickly)". Of course speed is, as the name implies, a game played quickly: oni ludas rapido rapide.

[Varad211396]

But since proper nouns do not change with language, wouldn't "Ili ludas Speed" be applicable here?

[Adrian729689]

Ili ludas la ludon 'Rapido'.

[Hjulle]

"La hundoj kaj katoj ludas nokto." Would that mean that the dog and the cat pretend that they are the night, or perhaps a game called "night"?

[yadwinder_gadari]

No word for "at" is Esperanto ?

[salivanto]

Esperanto often uses adverbs where English would use a prepositional phrase.

• nokto = night
• nokte = at night

[yadwinder_gadari]

Oooooooh. Okay

[NachshonB]

Does this work with the verb "estas"? For instance, how do I say "There is a party in my house at night"? Or "At night there are stars in the sky"?

Also, what about sentences without any verb? for example: "-when is your shift at the hospital tomorrow? -at night."

[Parnikkapore]

Q1: This is "estas" without a subject, like this:
There is a dog at my party - Estas hundo ĉe la festo.

Q2: For your example, it would be nokta because your shift at the hospital is at night. When there's nothing there, it's -e: Bone demando!

[claire_resurgent]

at (precise time) is "je"
at/during (approximate time) is dum or -e
at (place) is ĉe or -e

"Je" may always be replaced by the accusative case.

at three (o'clock) = je tria (horo) = trian (horon)

at night = dum nokto = nokte

at the house = ĉe domo = dome

[PvtUnderdog]

In this usage of the English "at" there is no real need for it in Esperanto. Other languages probably don't use "at" in this scenario, but that's just my speculation.

[jbrock64]

Estas festo en mia domo dum la nokto

[22decembre]

so, "la" does not get the plural itself ?

[WahahaDrills]

Yes, "la" never changes.

[KillTheFuture]

[numbah16]

Sed "La"... "La" neniam ŝanĝas.

Pardonon; mi estas komencanto.

[MosesPeris]

If "e" at the end of a word changes into an adverb, so why the translation is wrong ? The dogs and cats play nightly.

[salivanto]

Esperanto often uses adverbs where English would use a prepositional phrase.

• nokto = night
• nokte = at night

"Nightly" has a special meaning in English of "on every night".

[AdamScott794079]

Cats and dogs is more natural in English

[ej.ly]

Isn't "The hounds and cats play at night." a correct interpretation?

[salivanto]

No. A hound is a hunting dog. In Esperanto: ĉashundo.

[ej.ly]

Thanks.

[water_color]

How can the person who have pets be called in Esperanto? I'm sure there's a word for it

[salivanto]

Good question. What do we call them in English? The politically correct term keeps changing. Here are some options.

• Posedanto
• Bestoposedanto
• Dorlotbestoposedanto.
• Dorlotanto
• Dorlothomo.

The last two - especially the last one are kind of a joke - but it might be fun to use these terms.

[lauwura01]

jes, mia kato tre sxatas ludi nokte.. dormas estas malfacila

[DavidLamb53073]

That would have to be "dormi estas malfacile", because in Esperanto you can't have two ordinary verbs together. In English, the same word "sleep" can be a noun and a verb, so it is possible to say "Sleep is difficult". However, suppose the verb was "write". Just as you would never say in English, "write is difficult", so in Esperanto you never say, "Skribas estas malfacile". It has to be "to write" in English and "skribi" in Esperanto. Actually in the first part of your post, you had the right idea - you didn't put "jes, mia kato tre sxatas ludas nokte", but "jes, mia kato tre sxatas ludi nokte".