Common Transitive Verbs in Esperanto

by Dr. David K. Jordan

from Being Colloquial in Esperanto, pp. 77-78

One common problem for English-speaking students of Esperanto is the fact that, in English, many (though by no means all) verbs can have two closely related but functionally quite different meanings. One of these meanings is intransitive, which means the action described by the verb affects only the subject of the sentence; the other of these meanings is transitive, which means that the action is one carried out by the subject which affects someone or something else. A good example is the word "drown". If we say "the man drowned" then "drown" is here an intransitive verb; the action affects only the man. On the other hand, if we say "the man drowned the kittens" then "drown" is here a transitive verb; the man carries out the action of drowning on the kittens.

There are, of course, English verbs that don't fit this paradigm. Take the word "die". If we say "the policeman died", we know that the verb "die" is intransitive and the action affects only the policeman. If we say "the policeman died the criminal" ... well, all we know is that we have made a mistake; we must say, instead, "the policeman killed the criminal" because "die", like its Esperanto equivalent morti, cannot be transitive.

In Esperanto, all verbs are either intransitive or transitive — either one or the other, but not both. Of course, Esperanto provides ways of shifting back and forth between these two actions. If a verb is intransitive, we can add the suffix -IG- to make it transitive; if it is transitive, we can add the suffix -IĜ- to make it intransitive.

Here is a list of common Esperanto verbs that are transitive (and that are often confusing, in this way, for English speakers).

You can also find a list of common intransitive verbs in Esperanto.