"Sofia and Adamo are Esperanto speakers."

Translation: Sofia kaj Adamo estas esperantistoj.

[Strigulino]

Why not "Esperantaj parolantoj"? Is there a reason? I do think it's a bit odd that you have la anglan, la francan, la hispanan but not la esperantan...

[mbalicki]

Esperantaj parolantoj is totally fine and if it's not accepted by the algorithm, well then report it and it will be. :) It's just that esperantisto is a very common word in Esperanto and English Esperanto speakers is just a way around, because the team decided not to use English word esperantists.

[Strigulino]

I'd report it but I'm not sure how to get back to that page now.... and you can't report them on the mobile version anyway which is a bit annoying.

[adlihtam]

You can report from the app by pressing the little flag on the feedback banner.

[MikeBlamires]

So why did the phrase "Sofia kaj Adamo estas Esperantistoj." come out of the blue. I had just seen the word "esperantist" in English and then I am expected to translate it into Esperanto using the English phrase "Esperanto speaker". Therefore I am misdirected into an answer using "parolojn esperantojn" because those are the words I have been tutored on in the module.

Really enjoying learning Esperanto but am a bit peeved with the idiosyncrasies of the pedagogy.

[yekrats]

Yeah, it is in beta at the moment, so your feedback is valuable! Hopefully these little wrinkles will be ironed out soon.

[mbalicki]

Esperanto course is still in its β phase, so don't be turned off by the lack of some equivalent and/or synonymous ways to state a thing in English or Esperanto.

By the way, bonvolu to keep in mind, that “parol·o” (the word which you've suggested) means “speech”; “speaker” is in Esperanto “parol·ant·o”, where the infix “-ant-” could be described in English as a active present nominal participle (someone who performs an action; here: “parol·i”).

[MikeBlamires]

So I would be correct is suggesting that it is pedagogically inappropriate to assume that a leaner of esperanto would have this knowlege when doing this set of questions because they have just done plurals and colours but not yet 'active present nominal participles'.

Thanks for replying, my delight in this language grows with each section and my comments are intended to enhance the learning of those who join us in leaning this language .

[adlihtam]

I knew it!

[cirokes]

Then could you say "italantisto" for someone who speaks Italian and "germanisto" for someone speaking German?? :0

[mbalicki]

No. :) In the case the -ist- suffix is used in the meaning “follower or an idea, movement”, which makes sense, since Esperanto is a created language. The word esperant·ist·o is defined as anyone, who uses this language in the “Deklaracio pri la Esenco de la Esperantismo”.

For other languages, since they don't come with any movement nor idea, it wouldn't make sense to use -ist- in this sense.

So you just say ital·o — “an Italian (person)”, la ital·a (lingv·o) — “the Italian (language)” and ital·parol·ant·o or parol·ant·o de la ital·a — “an Italian speaker” and you just say. german·o — “a German (person)”, la german·a (lingv·o) — “the German (language)” and german·parol·ant·o or parol·ant·o de la german·a — “a German speaker”.

[tuxayo]

What does "Sofia kaj Adamo estas Esperantistaj" would mean? (using an adjective instead of the substantive)

[OliverBens1]

Is it "esperantistoj" instead of "esperantisto" because it's plural? So if I said "Adamo estas esperantisto" that would be correct as well?

[mbalicki]

That's exactly right. :)

[sixtails]

What's the entomology of "Esperantanoj"? Does -tano mean something like "person"?

[mbalicki]

Esperantanoj can be divided into morphemes like that: esperant·an·o·j, where esperant- is a word root signifying the beautiful language we speak, -j is for plural, -o is for noun (as you probably already know) and the affix -an- means “member” (ĥor·o — “choir” & ĥor·an·o — “chorister”, polic·o — “police” & polic·an·o — “police officer”) or “inhabitant” (Pariz·o — “Paris” & pariz·an·o — “Parisian”, insul·o — “island” & insul·an·o — “islander”).

But remember that esperant·an·o is a very uncommon word and in this case you should probably go for esperant·ist·o (where -ist- is for a profession or a follower of some idea).

By the way, the word esperant·o itself came from a pen-name, which Zamenhof (the creator of Esperanto) used: Doktor·o Esper·ant·o. On it's own it can also mean in Esperanto esper·ant·o, where the root is esper- related to hoping (esper·i — “to hope”) and -ant- is for active present participle, and so esper·ant·o means literally “hoping one, one who is hoping”, and that's where the letter “t”, you've been asking for, came from. :)

[JPnesseth]

Would "Esperantistoj estas adamo kaj sofia" work, or are there limits to the transposition of words when there are no object modifiers (i.e. "-n", if that makes sense...)?

[Dht1kna]

If parolas means to speak, then parolo means speaker, so why cant we say:

Sofia kaj Adamo estas Esperantaj paroloj

[mbalicki]

Your reasoning isn't valid.

The word parol·i means “to speak” and parol·o means “speech”; “speaker” is in Esperanto parol·ant·o, where the infix -ant- is the ending of the active present nominal participle (someone who performs an action; here: parol·i).

[dale.bryan-brown]

"Sofia kaj Adamo estas parolantoj de Esperanto"

I put this on and got it wrong, but it seems to make sense, thoughts?

[Ulysses831915]

SOFIA IS AN ESPERANTO WORD?!?

[mbalicki]

Hey! No need to shout. Let us behave here.

Answering your question: yes and no. Sofia is a personal name. You may therefore treated as being outside and independent of any language — it's somebody's name therefore you may use it in Esperanto to refer to that person.

But you may also treat is as proper Esperanto name. Languages translate personal names adjusting them to their own rules of phonology and orthography. Nowadays many languages tend to leave foreign names unchanged (maybe except for names of royals) but Esperanto has a strong tradition of esperantisation of names, either by using long-established forms or following their patterns.

Sofia is an Esperanto form of the female name existing in many different languages, e.g. English “Sophie”, Greek “Σοφία”, Hungarian “Zsófia”, Russian “София”, Icelandic “Soffia”, Polish “Zofia”, Georgian “სოფჰიო”, Maltese “Sofana” and many more. Many people bearing any version of the name would choose to use the form Sofia in Esperanto.

[ReedPratt]

I am a bit confused about how the "Adamo" has an O at the end, even though it is in english. I know it is a proper noun, but the O at the end is used really only in esperanto. Or so I think. I may be wrong.

[Orelya7]

Very late reply here, but in case anyone else is wondering: It seems to be a common practise to turn names from other languages/cultures into their Esperanto version. Adam becoming Adamo, for example.

[Aero-cielo]

Why is it not esperantistojN ? It seems to me that the form used here is accusative, no ?

[NunoRafael13]

Thumb rule: The verb 'esti' don't call for the accusative like the others verbs (it calls the nominative).