Tempodivalse:

evanamd:

spreecamper:How to express 'pli malpli' in English?

As far as I know, the expression "more or less" means the same thing.

Indeed. This is a fairly international turn of phrase - compare Spanish mas o menos, Russian boleje meneje, EO pli malpli.

Same in German (mehr oder weniger), Russian (более или менее), etc. but oddly enough it's actually the other way around in Polish "mniej więcej" (less or more)

pdenisowski:

Tempodivalse:

evanamd:

spreecamper:How to express 'pli malpli' in English?

As far as I know, the expression "more or less" means the same thing.

Indeed. This is a fairly international turn of phrase - compare Spanish mas o menos, Russian boleje meneje, EO pli malpli.

Same in German (mehr oder weniger), Russian (более или менее), etc. but oddly enough it's actually the other way around in Polish "mniej więcej" (less or more)

For Mandarin Chinese, the two expressions I know are "left-right" 左右 and "small difference" 差不多(which you could literally backtranslate into Esperanto as "malsamas ne multe"）.

If you put the words for "more" 多 and "less" 少 together, you get the equivalent of Esperanto "kiom" or English "how many/how much" 多少.

pdenisowski:So I still don't see a use case (no pun intended) for "na" or some similar "accusative marking preposition". Some langauges do have case-marking prepositions (e.g. Japanese を and に for direct and indirect object, which are technically postpositions ...), but my feeling is Esperanto does fine without them

Amike,
Paul

I wasn't advocating it, I just don't think its purpose is a matter of simplification. It's just a less awkward way of marking the accusative for those that deem it necessary.

etala:

pdenisowski:

Tempodivalse:

evanamd:

spreecamper:How to express 'pli malpli' in English?

As far as I know, the expression "more or less" means the same thing.

Indeed. This is a fairly international turn of phrase - compare Spanish mas o menos, Russian boleje meneje, EO pli malpli.

Same in German (mehr oder weniger), Russian (более или менее), etc. but oddly enough it's actually the other way around in Polish "mniej więcej" (less or more)

For Mandarin Chinese, the two expressions I know are "left-right" 左右 and "small difference" 差不多(which you could literally backtranslate into Esperanto as "malsamas ne multe"）.

If you put the words for "more" 多 and "less" 少 together, you get the equivalent of Esperanto "kiom" or English "how many/how much" 多少.

Thanks a lot for your translation help. I also wonder about myself. During I wrote regarding post in English the Esperanto 'pli malpli' was that strong dominant to supress completely my native German equivalent 'mehr oder weniger' which is very similar in its idea to English 'more or less'.

pdenisowski:So I still don't see a use case (no pun intended) for "na" or some similar "accusative marking preposition". Some langauges do have case-marking prepositions (e.g. Japanese を and に for direct and indirect object, which are technically postpositions ...), but my feeling is Esperanto does fine without them

Regarding entry at Wikipedia mentions that Na-prepocio mainly seems to find its use case at spoken conversation: 'En parola lingvaĵo simila aparta indikado de finaĵo eĉ apenaŭ eblas, tial, kompare kun skribo, en parolo la uzo de na aparte oftas.'