Meldinger: 9
Språk: English
Ferrus (Å vise profilen) 2012 1 16 00:55:47
erinja (Å vise profilen) 2012 1 16 01:02:16
Correlatives
(scroll down to the bottom for links to exercises at three levels of difficulty)
You could also do the correlatives section of the vocabulary drills, here.
darkweasel (Å vise profilen) 2012 1 16 06:25:58
miamaslegi (Å vise profilen) 2012 1 16 07:19:49
The correlatives ending in -am I can remember to associate with time, since A.M. is time-related, too. I remember the -iu correlatives by remembering that kiU = whO. The -ies correlatives just seem to go together with possession in my mind - maybe it's the "s" on the end. The -om words I try to remember by thinking thusly, "How much do you want? This much? Omm...I don't know!"
I'm still trying to come up with something for the rest of the correlative endings, but maybe you could try something like that yourself? Some sort of silly mnemonic device to help them stick in your mind?
erinja (Å vise profilen) 2012 1 16 17:29:17
darkweasel (Å vise profilen) 2012 1 16 17:39:51
O = substantival ending (same meaning in the correlative table)
A = adjectival ending (same meaning)
E = similar to the suffix -ej, meaning a place
EL = since the logical choice E (adverbial ending) was already taken, Zamenhof just stuck an L onto it
ES should be intuitive for English speakers ("whose", like kies, ends with an S).
Ferrus (Å vise profilen) 2012 1 18 11:22:41
erinja (Å vise profilen) 2012 1 18 14:05:41
In Esperanto the prepositions are in fact far simpler.
We use prepositions in Esperanto according to their root meanings. There are very few situations in which Esperanto prepositions are used in what I would call an arbitrary way.
The "trick" to using Esperanto prepositions is to learn their meanings. And then when you reach a situation where you need a preposition, you use the one whose meaning most closely matches what you're looking for. And if you happen to hit upon a preposition that isn't the most commonly used, but whose meaning still works in the situation, you're still correct.
We knock on a door in English. What makes sense here? If you think about it, you could argue that knocking "at" a door makes sense, knocking "to" a door, knocking "against" a door. In English, only knocking "on" a door is considered correct, or in some cases, "a knock at the door". In Esperanto, they are all considered correct, because they make logical sense. In my personal opinion, knocking "on" a door - the most common idiom in English - makes the least sense of all of the prepositions I've mentioned here.
"Je" is used to talk about time, length, and measurement. And if you have a situation, and you look at all of the other prepositions and they don't seem to make sense, use "je". "Je" is in fact a brilliant idea. For those difficult situations where nothing seems to work well, rather than arbitrarily choosing a preposition that doesn't make logical sense there, we have a catch-all preposition to take care of it.
miamaslegi (Å vise profilen) 2012 1 19 00:28:24