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Present Perfect Continuous tense

de dragonsgift, 10 octobre 2007

Messages : 14

Langue: English

dragonsgift (Voir le profil) 10 octobre 2007 19:17:32

I posted this as a reply to another thread, I hope you will forgive the secondary posting.

How do you construct the Present Perfect Continuous tense in Esperanto?

As in "I have been ...-ing".

"I have been studying Esperanto for a month."

"I have been working in England for three years."

"I have been seeing her every day."

What "helper" verb do you use? I think not "havi"...

Thanks in advance.

Gxejson

taneli (Voir le profil) 13 octobre 2007 03:31:30

dragonsgift:How do you construct the Present Perfect Continuous tense in Esperanto?
You don't.
As in "I have been ...-ing".

"I have been studying Esperanto for a month."

"I have been working in England for three years."

"I have been seeing her every day."
Normally, you use "-is" for actions that have already finished, "-os" for ones that haven't started yet, and "-as" for the rest. Anything else that you express with tenses in English is done with adverbs, prepositional phrases etc.

If the focus is clearly on when something started, you simple use "ekde" and -as:

Mi studas Esperanton ekde antaŭ monato.
Mi laboras en Anglio ekde antaŭ tri jaroj.

As far as I understand, the tense in your third example puts the focus on the immediate past either because you don't know about the future, or because you know the situation is about to change. In Esperanto, you have to choose:

Mi renkontas ŝin ĉiutage.
Ĝis nun mi renkontis ŝin ĉiutage, sed...

awake (Voir le profil) 13 octobre 2007 04:15:35

Just a couple of notes. ekde is a combination of the prefix ek- (which indicates a sudden or momentary action, or the beginning of an action) and the preposition de (of, from, by). So, ekde literally means "beginning from", and it generally is used to put the focus on the moment the action started.

Other (only subtly different) constructions you can use are "jam de" (already from) or just "de" (from) which puts the focus more on the entire duration of the action.

Mi lernas Esperanton jam de du jaroj. = I've been learning Esperanto for 2 years

Mi lernas Esperanton ekde du jaroj = I've been learning Esperanto beginning from two years ago.

In practice, these different choices are basically interchangeable. ridulo.gif

Stefano B (Voir le profil) 13 octobre 2007 04:31:06

Why can't you say: "Mi estas lerninta Esperanton antaŭ monato."?

awake (Voir le profil) 13 octobre 2007 05:22:33

Your sentence would translate as "I have learned Esperanto a month ago". That specific example is a bit awkward (to me anyway). In any case, it means something different. The -inta participle implies that the action is completed.

If you say "Mi estas lerninta" That really means "I have learned (and I've finished learning).

Stefano B:Why can't you say: "Mi estas lerninta Esperanton antaŭ monato."?

stel-rigardadanto (Voir le profil) 20 octobre 2007 23:51:33

What about something like: Mi estas lernanta Esperanton dum monato?

kinghajj (Voir le profil) 21 octobre 2007 02:55:46

Yes, having so many different tenses can be confusing and wasteful. For many English speakers, learning a new language requires one also to learn a radical new way of expression. English is so full of idioms that other languages seem too blunt for us, but in fact they are not blunt, they are just to-the-point.

taneli (Voir le profil) 22 octobre 2007 17:11:03

stel-rigardadanto:What about something like: Mi estas lernanta Esperanton dum monato?
That's something you'd be likely to say if you were on a one-month Esperanto course and didn't plan to continue learning afterwards, no matter whether the course started yesterday or would end tomorrow.

In general, I believe you learn best if you at first refrain from using the complex tenses, but, when needed, use adverbs to express the relevant information contained in the tenses of English. That way you can more easily unlearn the habit of adding superfluous information that's obligatory in English but not in Esperanto. Once it feels natural to use only three tenses, you're much less likely to overuse the remaining ones.

Stefano B (Voir le profil) 23 octobre 2007 03:28:43

But I'm sure there must be a way to form this verb tense in Esperanto.

What if you say: "Mi estas estinta lernanta Esperanton dum unu monato".

I think that gets everything, right? "Mi estas" ..I have.. "estinta".. been .. "learning".. lernanta .. "Esperanton dum unu monato".

I think it's important to be able to express an an going action that started some time ago and is still going on. "Mi eklernis Esperanton antaŭ unu monato" doesn't really have the same meaning.

mnlg (Voir le profil) 23 octobre 2007 06:21:36

Stefano B:I think it's important to be able to express an an going action that started some time ago and is still going on.
"Mi lernas esperanton de monato".

Which is also the simplest, and possibly most common form.

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