Mesaĝoj: 8
Lingvo: English
Cfail0814 (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-03 21:02:37
I had an idea today. One way to make Esperanto be taken more seriously would be to create demand for it. I for one, write quite a bit of mail. I wind up writing letters to governments often as well. What if, everyone who writes to official bodies, were to write their message twice. Once in their native language and again in esperanto? I know that some organizations require every word to be read. If people started sending letters like this to governments eventually they would have to find someone who speaks esperanto to translate or respond. I suppose you could write it only in esperanto too, but then it runs the risk of being thrown away. What if we started a letter writing campaign to do such a thing? That way they would see that the language is alive and in use and by many people from many different places. They could see your native language and esperanto. I don't think it is so important necessarily what you write about as long as you write. You know? Anyway, just a thought.
Also, could anyone explain to me how to use the word " will" in esperanto? How would it translate. I.e.
I will shoot you if you don't stop.
I will walk home if you don't stop making that noise. Etc.
Rejsi (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-03 23:41:02
Cfail0814:Also, could anyone explain to me how to use the word " will" in esperanto? How would it translate. I.e.I don't know much about working letters to organizations, but I can answer this.
I will shoot you if you don't stop.
I will walk home if you don't stop making that noise. Etc.
In this context, "will" is a helping verb. It simply indicates that the next verb is going to happen in the future. "Going to" is a phrase that does the same thing. You only need to use the simple -os (future) verb ending.
"Mi pafos vin se vi ne ĉesos."
robbkvasnak (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-04 00:12:12
Demian (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-04 05:32:52
Rejsi:I believe "I will shoot you if you don't stop." is a conditional statement. I will put it into Esperanto this way: "Mi pafus vin se vi ne ĉesus."Cfail0814:Also, could anyone explain to me how to use the word " will" in esperanto? How would it translate. I.e.I don't know much about working letters to organizations, but I can answer this.
I will shoot you if you don't stop.
I will walk home if you don't stop making that noise. Etc.
In this context, "will" is a helping verb. It simply indicates that the next verb is going to happen in the future. "Going to" is a phrase that does the same thing. You only need to use the simple -os (future) verb ending.
"Mi pafos vin se vi ne ĉesos."
The same goes for "I will walk home if you don't stop making that noise." I will translate it as "Mi irus hejmen se vi ne ĉesus fari bruon."
Note: Please correct me if I am wrong.
sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-04 11:52:27
Note: Please correct me if I am wrong.Your wish is my command.
Not all if sentences are concerned with some imagined but not actual/possible reality. The -us ending is for those cases.
The man with the gun is telling the other party what is certain to happen if doesn't stop.
The will here can be translated with -os - Mi pafos se vi ne haltos - however it does not fully capture the determination expressed (in English) by the 'will' in I will shoot if you don't stop.
But if you are a Esperantist policeman running after an Esperantist thief you would presumably prefer the shorter Mi pafos to Mi ne hezitos pafi or Mi certe pafos.
However, the language of police chases is not yet fully developed in Esperanto.
Halt, aŭ mi pafos! (go on make my day, punk - nur provu, merdulo)
cFlat7 (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-04 13:58:30
But if you are a Esperantist policeman running after an Esperantist thief you would presumably prefer the shorter Mi pafos to Mi ne hezitos pafi or Mi certe pafosOr(?):
Mi ja pafos!
kaŝperanto (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-04 14:07:05
I could see it being more likely back then, especially in Europe, but people these days don't have time for much.
erinja (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-04 16:24:40
kaŝperanto:This idea reminds me of a hypothetical situation illustrated in one of the several turn-of-the-century (previous century) Esperanto textbooks I've looked through. One of them posited that it would be possible to send a simple letter in Esperanto to someone with only a list of root words and a description of the grammar and they could read it with a decent level of understanding. I believe they said you would modify it so the roots/parts are separated in words, like "ŝlos-il-o".It would have to be a very simple letter.
I could see it being more likely back then, especially in Europe, but people these days don't have time for much.
I did something similar one time when I gave a short talk about Esperanto. I passed out a handout called "Esperanto in a page". It was a single page (double-sided) where I set down the basic grammar rules of Esperanto and gave a short vocabulary list. At the end, I put a couple of proverbs from Zamenhof's proverbaro, with a suggestion that the reader could try to decipher the proverbs, based on the grammar on the page and the word list. Obviously I made sure the vocabulary from the proverbs was in the list! I don't know if anyone in the group attempted it, however.