Ja Nur diru ke vi amas:
name of song at u-tube.
It troubled me initially that "vi amas" should be "vi amas min", but I guess that can be passed off as poetic license.

I occasionally return to trying Eo, with maddening results.
At one point in the aforementioned song, there's a line starting: "forigi triston".
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OK, forigi translates as "remove", no biggie.
"Triston" looks suspiciously like "sadness" or "sorrow". Strip away the accusative ending, gets you "tristo", which would be a noun, probably "sadness". But type "tristo" into the Google or Lernu translators, and "tristo" gives a null result.
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"trista" will return "sad". This is discouraging. If trista is the adjective form, tristo should be the noun form(ie, sadness or sorrow). I was/am drawn to the language by its logic, yet now I feel that the supposed logic is failing.
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Maybe "tristo" is in fact a word that means "sadness". I can't find it in my paperback dictionary, either.
Could it be that I'm missing the point here? Could it be that Eo's word-formation abilities/capabilities lead to this sort of issue? Could it be that one is expected to live with this feature of Eo? That is, some words might not be found in any dictionary, such as "tristo", but its ok to just invent these words as you go? I'm lost.
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Somehow it just seems obvious that triston would be accusative form of tristo, related to trista. Yet neither Google's nor Lernu's dictionaries recognize "tristo", nor does my personal dictionary.
My confusion is heightened by the fact that many lines of this song, when put into Google's translator, come out as meaninful gobbledeegoop. So if those other lines of the song might have provided a helpful clue, they don't, as they translate into meaningless series of words.

I understand tristo as sadness. Thus, forigi triston would be translated as get rid of sadness, at least it renders de idea that phrase. There also could be used malgxojo, but google translator renders it as sorrow.

Maybe "tristo" is in fact a word that means "sadness". I can't find it in my paperback dictionary, either.
Could it be that I'm missing the point here? Could it be that Eo's word-formation abilities/capabilities lead to this sort of issue? Could it be that one is expected to live with this feature of Eo? That is, some words might not be found in any dictionary, such as "tristo", but its ok to just invent these words as you go? I'm lost.

One of the things I like the most of Eo is the possibility to create and understand words knowing only the roots. It's like a game and some hints are given by context.

The root "trist-" does, indeed, mean sadness.

In Ido.

It is not an official Esperanto root, although it crops up periodically in Esperanto sentences. Probably because it has a (subjectively) nicer sound than malĝoj-. In any case, it's a good word to learn, since it pops up here and there, but it's not a good word to use because it's not technically Esperanto.

RiotNrrd:The root "trist-" does, indeed, mean sadness.

In Ido.

It is not an official Esperanto root, although it crops up periodically in Esperanto sentences. Probably because it has a (subjectively) nicer sound than malĝoj-. In any case, it's a good word to learn, since it pops up here and there, but it's not a good word to use because it's not technically Esperanto.

You can hardly say that it is not an Esperanto word when it's in common use and you can find the word in dictionaries. Actually, it's one of a few well-established words which have their equivalents with mal-.

PS
And something to listen to

In the Tekstaro trista(j)(n) gets 38 hits - tristo(n) gets only 16 hits. So the adjectival form is more common than the substantive form. But in any case in songs and poetry the language usage is often different to ordinary speech.

The online consultable NPIV gives

trist/a. Malgaja, malĝoja
tristo. Tio, kio igas trista: en kavoj de la nesondebla tristo.
tristeco. Eco de iu, io trista: droni en tristeco

Esperanto has a flexible system of building new words by changing grammatical markers and adding suffixes. It would be impossible to include every single correct variation in the dictionary. Instead, Esperanto speakers do just as you've done here - "oh, the dictionary tells me that trista means sad, and my word is tristo, a noun instead of an adjective. It must mean sadness because that's the noun form of sad."

Dictionaries can't possibly show every single variation.

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Edit:

And as an aside, the lernu dictionary can't be assumed to be complete. In addition to what I said above, lernu's dictionary might be missing some perfectly valid words. I have just added the English translation of "tristo" to the dictionary (and I noticed that it was already there in German, so this is also a function of the fact that you were searching in English -- depending on the level of activity of the dictionary volunteers in each language, you will find translations for different words, depending on which language you're looking at)

erinja:Esperanto has a flexible system of building new words by changing grammatical markers and adding suffixes. It would be impossible to include every single correct variation in the dictionary. Instead, Esperanto speakers do just as you've done here - "oh, the dictionary tells me that trista means sad, and my word is tristo, a noun instead of an adjective. It must mean
Thanks to both you & the others who gave helpful answers.
While I remember only a few words of German("traurigkeit"), u have suggested a possible work-around for problems, such as the one I've encountered. (admittedly, probably, a beginner's problem).
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I can only really speak English, but living in Chicago, I'm confronted with signs, billboards, etc, in Spanish, & have been forced to learn some Spanish to avoid feeling illiterate in my own land. "Triston" looked like "triste", a spanish word for "sad", that's why I guessed at the meaming of "triston" immediately. "Triston" is NOT translated for ::Eo to Español::. Maybe look into it?
-----end of my response------------

sadness because that's the noun form of sad."

Dictionaries can't possibly show every single variation.

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Edit:

And as an aside, the lernu dictionary can't be assumed to be complete. In addition to what I said above, lernu's dictionary might be missing some perfectly valid words. I have just added the English translation of "tristo" to the dictionary (and I noticed that it was already there in German, so this is also a function of the fact that you were searching in English -- depending on the level of activity of the dictionary volunteers in each language, you will find translations for different words, depending on which language you're looking at)

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erinja:Esperanto has a flexible system of building new words by changing grammatical markers and adding suffixes. It would be impossible to include every single correct variation in the dictionary. Instead, Esperanto speakers do just as you've done here - "oh, the dictionary tells me that trista means sad, and my word is tristo, a noun instead of an adjective. It must mean
Thanks to both you & the others who gave helpful answers.
While I remember only a few words of German("traurigkeit"), u have suggested a possible work-around for problems, such as the one I've encountered. (admittedly, probably, a beginner's problem).
-----
I can only really speak English, but living in Chicago, I'm confronted with signs, billboards, etc, in Spanish, & have been forced to learn some Spanish to avoid feeling illiterate in my own land. "Triston" looked like "triste", a spanish word for "sad", that's why I guessed at the meaming of "triston" immediately. "Triston" is NOT translated for ::Eo to Español::. Maybe look into it?
-----end of my response------------

I don't speak Spanish; editing the Spanish dictionary would be the responsibility of the Spanish-language dictionary volunteers. I don't feel confident enough to add words to a dictionary of a language I don't speak.

Anyone who sometimes feels annoyed that our dictionary lacks a word should think about becoming a dictionary volunteer to improve its quality (this isn't aimed at you, LionsAreUs, it's just a general comment). The quality of our site's offerings depends heavily on the efforts of our generous volunteers.

michaleo:You can hardly say that it is not an Esperanto word when it's in common use and you can find the word in dictionaries.

Actually, yes I can. What makes a root official is acceptance by the Akademio de Esperanto (AdE), and trist- is not among their list of official roots.

People may use it, people may stuff it into dictionaries, but until the AdE accepts it, it is not an official root, and therefore not a part of standard Esperanto. Which doesn't mean you can't use it, of course - people use all sorts of unofficial roots and affixes, all the time. If being nonstandard doesn't bother you, go for it.

Personally, I like trist- better than malĝoj-; I think it sounds better, and it gets rid of another mal- word. But I'm not under the illusion that it's an official root. It is just another of a number of Ido imports.

RiotNrrd:

Personally, I like trist- better than malĝoj-; I think it sounds better, and it gets rid of another mal- word.

It also has the nasty effect of giving yet another vocabulary word to learn for E-o students, which puts us one further step towards destroying one of the advantages to Esperanto. This attitude prevailing, we may as well just switch to Interlingua cum Esperanto grammar.