Adjectives
Adjectives are words that attribute a quality to a person or thing. In Esperanto, all adjectives end in -a:
| bona | good |
| malbona | bad |
| malbela | ugly |
As in some other European languages, adjectives in Esperanto must agree with the nouns they modify in both number and case — that is, if a noun has a plural -j and/or an accusative -n, so must its adjectives:
| La malica kunĉjo ekbruligis ĉiujn la bestojn. | The evil bunny set fire to all the animals. |
Words that aren’t already adjectives can be made into them simply by changing their endings to -a. What sort of adjectives they will become depends on the sort of root they have; adjectivized verbs tend to mean “that which -s”, adverbs of time mean “occurring on”, numbers become ordinals, prepositions “located”, and nouns any number of meanings, depending on the context:
| sorĉa (from sorĉi “to bewitch”) | bewitching, magic, enchanting, enchanted |
| hodiaŭa (from hodiaŭ “today”) | of today, today’s, hodiernal |
| dekdua (from dek du “twelve”) | twelfth |
| ekstera (from ekster “outside of”) | exterior |
| ora (from oro “gold”) | consisting of gold, containing gold, pertaining to wealth, as expensive or important as gold, gold-colored |
While the function of adjectives is to describe nouns, they can also be used as stand-ins for nouns:
| la bona, la malbona, kaj la malbela | the good, the bad, and the ugly |
| Evitu la verdajn. Ili ankoraŭ ne estas maturaj. | Avoid the green ones. They’re not ripe yet. |
The Placement of Adjectives
Generally speaking, adjectives in Esperanto come before the people or things they describe, except for emphasis or stylistic flourish:
| egoista, idioteca, hirta nerfisto | a stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf-herder |
| ideo absurda | an absurd idea |
However, adjectives that have a complement must come after the person or thing being described in order to make sense:
| Mi vidis ĉielon nigra pro fumo. | I saw a sky black from smoke. |
| Mi estas anĝelo ekstermanta pudelojn. | I am an angel exterminating poodles. |
Degrees of Comparison
“All animals are equal,” declares the ever-amended constitution in Animal Farm, “but some animals are more equal than others”. Such comparisons (equal and unequal) are expressed in Esperanto in much the same way as they are in English:
| Vi estas malpli egala ol mi. | You are less equal than I. |
| Vi estas (egale) tiel egala kiel mi. | You are (just) as equal as I. |
| Vi estas (eĉ) pli egala ol mi. | You are (even) more equal than I. |
| Vi estas la pli egala de/el la du. | You are the more equal of/out of the two. |
| Vi iĝas ĉiam pli egala ĉiutage. | You’re becoming more and more equal every day. |
| Vi estas la plej egala de/el ĉiuj. | You are the most equal of/out of all. |
| Vi estas la malplej egala de/el ĉiuj. | You are the least equal of all. |
| Kvankam ambaŭ vi estas egalaj, mi preferas vin (pli multe) ol vian amikon. | Though you are both equal, I prefer you to (more than) your friend. |
As might be expected from a planned language, there are no irregular or synthetic comparatives, as there are in English and other languages:
| bona, pli bona, plej bona | good, better, best |
| stulta, pli stulta, plej stulta | dumb, dumber, dumbest |
