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I recommend checking out The Lojban Reference Grammar, which will take you through the steps of learning the language: http://www.lojban.org/tiki/The+Lojban+Reference+Gr...

You can also check out the short guide called "What is Lojban?": http://lojban.org/publications/level0/brochure/boo...

I recommend that you start not by considering the parts of speech in Lojban, but rather by looking at sentence structure:

You can start by thinking of a sentence as describing a relationship. When I say {mi xabju le zdani}, I might translate that as "I live in the house", but really what I'm saying is that "I" (mi) am related to "the house" (le zdani) by a relation described as "residing in" (xabju).

This bridi has three main components: One selbri, and two sumti.

* The sumti are the arguments ("mi" and "le zdani"); the things that you are describing the relation between. These roughly correspond to subjects and objects in English.

* The selbri is the word describing the nature of the relation ("xabju"). In English, this would normally correspond to a verb.

One property that all gismu share is that they may serve as selbri; all gismu describe a relation of some sort (be it unary, binary, etc). There are some other words that can also do so, but gismu are the main ones.

However, in my sentence, there are really two gismu: xabju ("x1 resides/lives/abides in x2") is the selbri, but there's also zdani ("x1 is a house/nest/den/home for x2") as part of the second sumti.

Here I've used the word {le} to extract the first argument (x1) from this gismu: {le zdani} is a thing that can act as the x1-argument of a relation described by zdani.

This word, {le}, is a cmavo; a structure word. Most cmavo don't describe relationships between the sumti, but rather describe *grammatical* relationships between the words in your sentence, much like the function words, particles and punctuation in English. In essence, they are the cogs that keep Lojban grammar running.

For example, take the bridi {le tsani cu blanu}.

This bridi has two gismu:

tsani = "x1 is an expanse of sky/the heavens at place x2"

blanu = "x1 is blue"

le - Placing this cmavo before {tsani} means that I'm not really interested in {tsani} as a selbri-relation, but rather, I want to describe some thing which I would use as the x1 of tsani; something I can use . What that thing is would depend on context, but {le tsani} can reasonably be translated as "the sky", or "something-I-describe-as-being-and-expanse-of-sky".

cu - First, I need to explain quickly that there's a thing called a tanru, which is basically a compound of two (or more) adjacent gismu. It describes a relation similar to the second gismu, but *modified* by the first.

So, for example, I believe {tsani blanu} would mean something like "x1 is blue in the way of the sky at place x2".

As such, if I want to say "The sky is blue", I can't simply say {le tsani blanu}; that'd mean "That which I describe as being sky:ishly blue." I need something else there; another cmavo!

cu is a "selbri separator"; it separates the first sumti (le tsani) from the succeeding selbri (blanu).

{le tsani cu blanu} = "Something I describe as being a sky is blue." ~ "The sky is blue."

There are also cmavo dedicated to expressing relations in greater detail than we could readily do with gismu alone. For example, there are cmavo for explaining how you know something:

ja'o le tsani cu blanu = (I deduce) "The sky is blue"

ti'e le tsani cu blanu = (I've heard) "The sky is blue" ~ Y'know, word on the street is the sky is blue.

ka'u le tsani cu blanu = (I know by cultural means) "The sky is blue" ~ In my culture, the sky is held to be blue.

There are also cmavo for expressing how you feel at a particular time, kind of like smileys. It's not necessarily tied to anything else you're saying, but it usually is.

.ue le tsani cu blanu = (surprised) "They sky is blue" ~ Whoa! The sky is blue! :o

.u'ero'ucu'i le tsani cu blanu = (sexually indifferent wonderment) "The sky is blue" ~ I'm amazed by the sky's blueness! ...but not in a sexual way or anything.

...and there are cmavo for changing the word order of a sentence around without causing ambiguity!

prami - "x1 loves x2"

mi prami do ~ "I love you"

do prami mi ~ "You love me"

fe do prami fa mi ~ "I love you" (fe tells you do is x2, and fa tells you mi is x1)

do se prami mi ~ "I love you" (se tells you x1 and x2 have switch places)

...and for just about anything else.