Learn Ido from EnglishA practical entry to Ido
Ido is an Esperanto-derived international auxiliary language developed after the 1907 Delegation debate. It retains regular derivation while changing plural marking, agreement, pronouns, and object marking.12
Me havas la blua libro. — I have the blue book. This attested example establishes ordinary SVO order.1
The definite article is invariable, -i marks noun plurals, and verbs do not agree with person. Every Ido example below is an attested sentence from the research dossier; the explanatory text is deliberately English-only.1
| Attested Ido | English | Feature |
|---|---|---|
| La granda libri | The large books | plural -i; adjective stays singular |
| Me ne havas libro | I do not have a book | ne before the verb |
| Ka me havas libro? | Do I have a book? | ka introduces a yes/no question |
Learn the distinction between tu (familiar) and vu (formal), and use the pan-gender pronoun lu where appropriate. Keep the source’s documented forms separate from personal guesses about a speaker’s preference.1
The accusative -n is optional in normal SVO order but required when an object is fronted. The dossier’s attested example is La blua libron me havas (‘I have the blue book’). Use it as a clarity tool, not as an automatic ending.1
Present -as, past -is, and future -os are invariant. Comparison uses plu, maxim, min, minim, and kam. Practice one meaning contrast at a time with the deck before writing a longer text.1
At this level, compare an Ido text with a trustworthy translation, annotate regular endings, and record unfamiliar roots as complete forms. Ido’s active community is small, so contemporary usage should be checked against ULI material rather than inferred from Esperanto.12
Use the language’s reversibility principle as an editing check: identify the root, ending, and affix, then ask whether the derivation remains transparent in context.1
New vocabulary and usage decisions belong to the community’s documented processes. Cite a current source for claims about official changes or speaker numbers; the research record marks totals as uncertain.12
Practice reader and resources
The available dossier contains attested sentences rather than rights-cleared 1,200-character CEFR readers. This release therefore does not label generated prose as an authentic reader. Add levelled texts only after a source, permission status, and variety are recorded.