Learn Esperanto by Doing Nothing

November 22, 2024 - Published

Learning vocabulary in a new language is hard, even for constructed languages which tend to have very consistent spelling schemes.

However, if you're reading this, you can read English, and Esperanto happens to be one of the few popular auxlangs that has a large, noticeable amount of vocabulary from English! That means that a good percentage of Esperanto will be completely comprehensible to you -- definitely below 30-40%, but that's still more than something like Finnish!

While understanding normal speech may require studying, these words should allow you to form many sentences. This list is rough and something I just made for fun, but it will be sorted into different sections based on how recognizable they are. 

What I WON'T do is teach you how to speak Esperanto, which you can find many guides on (but I'll link this one because it's quick and dirty). That being said, I do want to put down a brief pronunciation guide for those who just want to read through the words for fun, or for those who are rusty:

Letters: A, B, C, Ĉ, D, E, F, G, Ĝ, H, Ĥ, I, J, Ĵ, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, Ŝ, T, U, Ŭ, V, Z

All letters can be pronounced like their English counterparts with some of the following exceptions (many examples taken from here).

Diacritic letters:

• Ĉ sounds like CH (e.g. in "chat")

• Ĝ sounds like J (e.g. in "judge")

• Ĥ is a harsh H sound like the CH in "loch"

• Ĵ sounds like ZH (e.g. the "s" in "measure")

• Ŝ sounds like SH (e.g. in "ship)

• Ŭ is just W (e.g. in "with")

Vowels always sound the same, unlike in English:

• A like in "father"

• E like in "pet"

• I like in "ski"

• O like in "more"

• U like in "flu"

Consonants have a few exceptions:

• C sounds like TS (e.g. in "pats")

• G is always pronounced like in "go," never like in "gem"

• J is just Y (e.g. in "yes")

• S is always pronounced like in "sea," never like in "please"

• R may or may not be a rolled R

Oh, and some last notes before we actually get into it.

First, I'm obviously not listing all the words, just the ones that I feel may be helpful or relevant, and not including things like country names. If you want to find all the words, visit this page.

Second, these lists are rough and informal and might not even be in alphabetical order. I do consider this a living document so I may give this some small updates, but I don't plan to make this like a really official thing lol 

Esperanto Words that are Literally Just English

This tier is for words that are essentially the same as their English counterparts. Some of them will be slightly different, yes, but those differences will mainly just be due to Esperanto's grammar. For example, "animal" can't be an Esperanto word because as a noun it has to end in -o, so it's "animalo." There's also certain sounds that don't exist in Esperanto (e.g. "suno" is pronounced more like "soon-o"), or letters that have to be changed because they're not pronounced the same in Esperanto (e.g. "objekto" instead of "object").

Still, with a basic understanding of Esperanto's alphabet, you can sound any of these words out loud, and it should be immediately recognizable to an English speaker. My general rule of thumb is: "if I had to turn this English word into an Esperanto word, would I end up with the exact same result?"

Esperanto Words that are Slightly Changed from English

This tier is for words that are slightly different from their English counterparts, whether by spelling or meaning. The line between this tier and the last tier may be a little blurred for some words, but generally the difference will be significant -- for any of these words, it would be reasonable to either recognize or not recognize them.

Many of these are based on languages that just have similar words to English (e.g. "por" being from Spanish resembles "for"), or they might be based on English and just happen to look considerably different due to their Esperanto form (e.g. "ŝuo" for "shoe").

Esperanto Words that COULD be Linked to English

For this tier, it's gonna be a little bit of a stretch. Either you need a strong knowledge of Greek/Latin roots that are technically in English (e.g. "ludo" from "ludology"), or you straight-up need to know a word from a different language that I just imagine is common enough that it would be reasonable for an English speaker to know (e.g. "bona" from "bon appetit"). 

This tier will also include words that have similar enough meanings to the words they resemble that someone listening could "get the gist" even if they didn't know the exact meaning (e.g. "libro" means "book," not "library"), or words that happen to resemble an English word close enough that one could guess what it means (e.g. "nombro" for "name").

Esperanto Words that... Have a Tenuous Relationship to English

Alright, these ones are a big stretch, but I wanted to include them anyway.

Sample Sentences

I originally considered making this a video, but I actually think it works best just as a simple document here.

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