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Help with various phrases

de Rejsi, 20 noiembrie 2013

Contribuții/Mesaje: 8

Limbă: English

Rejsi (Arată profil) 20 noiembrie 2013, 14:56:43

Hello everyone. In trying to translate a story, I have come across some difficulty in translating informal language (also puns and wordplay, but that's another story). Here are some of the things I'm having trouble with...

"You know?" - Does "Ĉu vi scias?" work here or would "Ĉu ne?" be better? Both?
"I mean" - The only think I can think of to put here is "aŭ." "Mi celis diri" and "Mi intencis diri" seem to also work, but they are a bit long. Any suggestions?
"That is to say" - This one is similar to the above. Is there a way to make it sound different? "Estas diri" doesn't sound correct.

I can't think of any more right now, but if you guys can think of some common informal phrases, I'd love to hear translations for them! Also, is there any sort of list out there with common Esperanto phrases in conversations?

Dankon pro viajn sugestojn!

erinja (Arată profil) 20 noiembrie 2013, 15:06:21

Can you give an example for the "I mean" situation? Do you mean it as a filler ("I mean, I TOLD her that she would be late" ) or do you mean it a bit more literally ("I meant that you should leave immediately" ).

"Cxu ne?" works well as "You know?".

Esperanto conversation is not so easy to teach, the best way to learn is to hang around experienced people talking. Esperanto has its own conversational filler, like other languages. As an example, I frequently say "fakte" in cases when I'd use "actually" in English, as filler. ("I am bringing four... actually... five, bags with me).

Rejsi (Arată profil) 20 noiembrie 2013, 15:13:00

erinja:Can you give an example for the "I mean" situation? Do you mean it as a filler ("I mean, I TOLD her that she would be late" ) or do you mean it a bit more literally ("I meant that you should leave immediately" ).
I suppose I'm looking for both.
"Cxu ne?" works well as "You know?".

Esperanto conversation is not so easy to teach, the best way to learn is to hang around experienced people talking. Esperanto has its own conversational filler, like other languages. As an example, I frequently say "fakte" in cases when I'd use "actually" in English, as filler. ("I am bringing four... actually... five, bags with me).
Gah. That wasn't the answer I was hoping for. So I suppose you don't know of any sort of conversational "list" then? lango.gif

noelekim (Arată profil) 21 noiembrie 2013, 02:21:10

Rejsi:
I can't think of any more right now, but if you guys can think of some common informal phrases, I'd love to hear translations for them! Also, is there any sort of list out there with common Esperanto phrases in conversations?
Maybe this is what you are looking for: tatoeba.org

sudanglo (Arată profil) 21 noiembrie 2013, 12:47:49

Esperanto contrasts with the natural languages in the extent to which it uses fixed turns of phrase. These abound in the natural (national) languages.

In Esperanto the guiding principle is clarity rather than cliché.

'Mean' has a lot of different uses in English. There will be multiple translations in Esperanto, depending on the desired meaning.

Tempodivalse (Arată profil) 22 noiembrie 2013, 00:17:22

In my experience Esperanto does not lend itself well to "filler language" as English. "Fakte" and "do" are the most (over)used ones, I think.

"That is to say ..." is best translated as "Alivorte ..." or "Tio estas ..."

But perhaps this should be a motivation for us to use less filler in general, instead of attempting to replicate oft-used "clutter" words such as "y'know," "like," "actually," "I mean," and so on, that don't normally contribute any additional meaning to a sentence. Or, perhaps my obsession with clear language use makes me a killjoy in casual conversations. ridulo.gif

erinja (Arată profil) 22 noiembrie 2013, 11:07:40

"Efektive" and "nu" are other filler words, but "efektive" gets used in about the same contexts as "fakte".

sudanglo (Arată profil) 22 noiembrie 2013, 13:20:42

Nu, efektive, konsiderante ĉion, kaj nun pli bone konante la situacion, mi pensas, ke vi, kiel ofte estas tiel, tute pravis, kaj ĝojas ke vi en tiu maniero malkaŝe diris tion al ŝi sen vesti vian opinion en ĝentilaĵoj.

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