apok2:How in the world do you express "trying to get to heaven." Ĉielo is the word for both sky and heaven, but doesn't seem to fit in this situation.

I can't see why ĉielo wouldn't be appropriate. It apparently derives from It. "cielo", or Fr. "ciel", which are used for both heaven and sky (cf. also Lat. "caelum", from which both derive). Also, think of the Esperanto version of the Lord's Prayer: estu volo Via, kiel en la ĉielo, tiel ankaŭ sur la tero.

novialingue:

apok2:How in the world do you express "trying to get to heaven." Ĉielo is the word for both sky and heaven, but doesn't seem to fit in this situation.

I can't see why ĉielo wouldn't be appropriate. The French noun from which it apparently derives, "ciel", is used for both heaven and sky. Think of the Esperanto version of the Lord's Prayer: estu volo Via, kiel en la ĉielo, tiel ankaŭ sur la tero.

Agreed. "Iri al la ĉielo" or "Iri ĉielen" are common usage. Maybe you could make the "ĉ" uppercase if clarity is a concern. I can understand the reluctance to use a word whose semantic field is somewhat larger than the original English, but in a religious context the sentence is immediately understood. Plus, I can hardly imagine any other contexts in which the phrase could be used, except perhaps if you're talking about an aircraft. And even that would seem a little far-fetched as the vehicule is not so much going to the sky, as it is flying through it.

"Se vi estas kristano, vi ne estas civitano de tiu ĉi mondo kiu penas atingi la regno de Dio; anstataŭe vi estas civitano de tiu ĉiela regno, vojaĝanta tra tiu ĉi mondo."

The sentence is missing an "n" at the end of "atingi la regnon" but is otherwise fine as it is.

I have occasionally heard use of "paradizo" to mean heaven.

But in general "ĉielo" is used for both sky and heaven with no confusion. It's a little weird at first as an English speaker, to encounter Esperanto words that have a single word for what we English speakers think of as two totally different words, but you get used to it eventually and context tells you the meaning.

Another one is "zorgi", which can mean both "worry" and "care". "ĝardeno" is both a garden and the yard of a house (this matches British usage, which says "garden" for what we'd call a yard in America).

Thanks for the correction, yyaann. I thought about using "la regnon de Dio en la Ĉielo" but decided against it. I see that part of my problem is a lack of knowledge of articles/magazines/books written in Esperanto. This lack limits one's use of the language and the only way to get over it is to read, read, read. Just as in your 'denaska' language, the more you read, the better you write. Thanks a lot, all of you, for the instruction.

"ĝardeno" is both a garden and the yard of a house (this matches British usage, which says "garden" for what we'd call a yard in America).

In my English a yard is distinguished from a garden. Things have to grow in a garden, or at least have the potential to grow, ie there must be soil. But a concreted-over or barren area can be a yard.

Yard: chiefly British, a piece of uncultivated ground adjoining a building, typically one enclosed by walls or other buildings: tiny houses with the lavatory in the yard

I like the Esperanto language but, contrary to what many of you seem to think, Esperanto is NOT an easy language

A valid point.

But it all depends on your basis for comparison.

Comparing one's progress in Esperanto with that in a foreign national language (learnt in adulthood), Esperanto looks easy.

But achieving a command of Esperanto comparable to the command of one's Mother tongue is decidedly not easy.

But then, is this a reasonable goal, even for a finvenkisto?

I suspect not. Good enough is all that is reasonably required.

This is why machine translation is such a threat to Esperanto, and also why the world is happy to (currently) communicate internationally in mangled English.

It has probably never been true of any Lingua Franca throughout history that the users were that proficient in it (compared to their competence in any language learnt from birth).

At least, one can say that any speaker's poor Esperanto is likely to be much better than that of any foreigner's poor English.

Hey, Apok, jus' got my joe and am sorta lazin' into my Sunday cause it's gay pride and friggin' muggy outside so I'm dallyin' here abouts getting up the courage to slip on my flipflops and a pair of grundgy bermudas to hit the sweaty streets of Fort Lauderdale.
I do not profess to professor you. To the contrary - that is what egged my students the most at the university - I said you guys grade each other! This is a democracy. I am just the pointer-outer - what my colleagues call a "facilitator" though I think that many of my comments sort of "malfaciligas" since I hope to make people (and myself) think. It's Socratic teaching where I play the devil's advocate but sometimes also the devil. There is nothing as mojosa as a thinking brain. Get that hipocampus moving! Rev up the Wernicke's region and connect to Broca!
I like your multi-adverbial sentence as well as the other varieties - that is what literature is about - that is why the humanities are necessary - how do we connect to reality with this thing called brain and its mystical counterpart called mind? The Buddha said: "The mind is not disturbed by things as they occur, that remains pure and tranquil under all circumstances, is the true mind and should be the master." So right now I am looking for my mind - I guess you could say that I have lost my mind but am conscious of it - I am not out of my mind, it is out of me. Hugs and a pat on the back. Keep asking and ponder, keep wondering and wonder. I often sit for hours watching my two turltes Ludoviĉjo and Lidinjo searching my face for clues as to who I am and me looking back trying to imagine what they see and what they are thinking in their pond on the mossy log.

erinja:But in general "ĉielo" is used for both sky and heaven with no confusion. It's a little weird at first as an English speaker, to encounter Esperanto words that have a single word for what we English speakers think of as two totally different words, but you get used to it eventually and context tells you the meaning.

Many languages use the same words for "sky" and "heaven" : German (Himmel), Dutch (hemel), French (ciel), Spanish/Italian (cielo), Latin (caelum), Polish (niebo), Russian (небо), Vietnamese (trời), etc.

One of the things I like the most about studying languages is that it forces you to think differently (note the adverb ... ) about how you perceive the world. Distinctions that are unimportant in some languages are very important in other languages and vice-versa.

Amike,

Paul

sudanglo:

"ĝardeno" is both a garden and the yard of a house (this matches British usage, which says "garden" for what we'd call a yard in America).

In my English a yard is distinguished from a garden. Things have to grow in a garden, or at least have the potential to grow, ie there must be soil. But a concreted-over or barren area can be a yard.

In America, if someone was concreted-over, it wouldn't normally be called a yard, at least not in my region. If it was bare earth perhaps it would still be called a yard, but it would be considered a pretty poor one!

sudanglo:In my English a yard is distinguished from a garden. Things have to grow in a garden, or at least have the potential to grow, ie there must be soil. But a concreted-over or barren area can be a yard.

Yard: chiefly British, a piece of uncultivated ground adjoining a building, typically one enclosed by walls or other buildings: tiny houses with the lavatory in the yard

You overlook the point. In the US, a yard and a garden are both things you have at the back (or front) of your house in which stuff grows. However, a garden is explicitly a well-cultivated region with ornamental plants or maybe vegetables. A yard, by contrast, refers to the entire area and may include grass lawn, some trees, and even gardens.

In the UK, however, the one word 'garden' is used for both these meanings. One can be out back sitting in the garden, or one can also be planting a vegetable garden in Spring. The fact that 'yard' still has a meaning in British English isn't really relevant to the Esperanto-English comparison.

That said, as an aside, the British usage of yard is also used in the States occasionally. The term 'prison yard' comes to mind as an example.