Esperanto Language Blog

In my opinion, the most difficult part about learning Esperanto is tackling all the correlatives. They are quite logical in their construction (as is all of Esperanto!), and you could easily form them if you had a small, pocket-sized table on you. But, there are still a good number of them, and sometimes they can be difficult to recall because of their similarity.

One trick I’ve used to help me remember the ki- correlatives is to place them with another word, to help with the question you’re trying to ask. By recalling these compound words, you can more easily remember the necessary correlative, as well as have a quick and useful phrase memorized. The two I use most often (and the only two I can recall off the top of my head right now) are “kiudirekte” and “kiamaniere.”

Kiudirekte estas la hospitalo? – Which way is the hospital?
Kiamaniere gxin vi faris? – How (what kind of way) did you do it?

Not only are these words nice and specific – they also can help you recall the ki- correlatives. “Kiu” more or less means “which one,” which we can easily deduce from “kiudirekte,” which at a glance might make you think “which direction.” Similarly, “kiamaniere” brings to mind “what kind of” and “manner.”

Maybe this trick will help you remember your correlatives, too!

Some time ago, I mentioned the French author Claude Piron in a post. Continuing in this week’s trend of examining notable Esperanto authors, I think it’s time we paid him his due! Piron was born to be a universal author, as he worked as a translator for the United Nations. He spoke five different languages, excluding Esperanto! I think it says something about the Esperanto language that someone of his immense linguistic experience would choose to base his literary career upon it.

Though he wrote poetry, novels, articles, and pretty much every other literary form in Esperanto, Piron is most remembered for two works in particular: “Gerda Malaperis” (Gerda Disappeared), which we visited in an earlier post, and the nonfiction text “La Bona Lingvo” (The Good Language). In the latter work, Piron puts forth one of the most convincing arguments for adopting Esperanto. He presents lots of linguistic reasons for doing so, but interestingly enough, he mentions somewhere in the work that, once he had learned a solid vocabulary base in Esperanto, he was able to think much more clearly in Esperanto than any other language!

If you would like to hear some of Piron’s case for Esperanto, there is a Youtube video that you can watch here. Gerda Malaperis can be found in its entirety at this site, where it is the basis for a 25-part Esperanto course.

If you’ve never visited Europe, you may not have heard of the comic hero Asterix. The series takes place in a village in Gaul (the region that is now France) during the time of the Roman Empire. Asterix and company battle the invading forces of Caesar by means of all sorts of bizarre potions, magics, and ingenious tactics. His adventures span over 30 different comic books, and a lot of them have ended up translated into many different languages. Esperanto is among them! For orthographical purposes, his name is “Asteriks” in Esperanto, since Esperanto has no official x character.

If you want to learn a bit more about the series, Esperanto.net has a great article here. Reading the comic is a good way to improve your Esperanto skills, since the pictures that accompany the text can help you understand what’s going on more than text alone can.