I recently downloaded The Esperanto Teacher as a learning tool. In the section discussing the subject of a sentence, the author gives a few examples. One of the examples is "la patron mordis la hundo/The father bit the dog." Now, the author does give a disclaimer saying that the sentences are somewhat absurd. However, I'm not entirely sure the sentence is correct... Shouldn't "the father bit the dog" read as "la patro mordis la hundon"? Or am I just completely missing something essential here? The examples continue in this fashion, and I'd like to make sure I have a good understanding of this before I continue with this book.

Thanks!
Seth

hahamango:I recently downloaded The Esperanto Teacher as a learning tool. In the section discussing the subject of a sentence, the author gives a few examples. One of the examples is "la patron mordis la hundo/The father bit the dog." Now, the author does give a disclaimer saying that the sentences are somewhat absurd. However, I'm not entirely sure the sentence is correct... Shouldn't "the father bit the dog" read as "la patro mordis la hundon"? Or am I just completely missing something essential here? The examples continue in this fashion, and I'd like to make sure I have a good understanding of this before I continue with this book.

Thanks!
Seth

You are indeed correct that these are "mistakes", but the author intended to use them to illustrate that English is ambiguous without a strict word ordering (while Esperanto is not). It is a little strange to show incorrect English to illustrate this point rather than simply explaining it. I personally listened to the audio recording of the book first, and the reader made use of inflection to attempt to make this clearer. He read it with inflection like, "THE FATHER, bit the dog" (a strong emphasis on the father). I would describe it like he was answering someone who asked "Who did the dog bite?"

It's almost like they are showing you how you lose information when translating (word-by-word) from Esperanto into English. In fact, if you go to Google Translate and type in "La patron mordis la hundo" you will get "The father bit the dog", which is not correct.

You seem to be on the right track so far.

Also, welcome to Lernu!

You are indeed correct that these are "mistakes", but the author intended to use them to illustrate that English is ambiguous without a strict word ordering (while Esperanto is not). It is a little strange to show incorrect English to illustrate this point rather than simply explaining it. I personally listened to the audio recording of the book first, and the reader made use of inflection to attempt to make this clearer. He read it with inflection like, "THE FATHER, bit the dog" (a strong emphasis on the father). I would describe it like he was answering someone who asked "Who did the dog bite?"

It's almost like they are showing you how you lose information when translating (word-by-word) from Esperanto into English. In fact, if you go to Google Translate and type in "La patron mordis la hundo" you will get "The father bit the dog", which is not correct.

Interesting; I wasn't aware that there was an audio recording to go along with this. I'll have to check it out. Thank you for the info and for clearing that up! Now, back to reading!

hahamango:

You are indeed correct that these are "mistakes", but the author intended to use them to illustrate that English is ambiguous without a strict word ordering (while Esperanto is not). It is a little strange to show incorrect English to illustrate this point rather than simply explaining it. I personally listened to the audio recording of the book first, and the reader made use of inflection to attempt to make this clearer. He read it with inflection like, "THE FATHER, bit the dog" (a strong emphasis on the father). I would describe it like he was answering someone who asked "Who did the dog bite?"

It's almost like they are showing you how you lose information when translating (word-by-word) from Esperanto into English. In fact, if you go to Google Translate and type in "La patron mordis la hundo" you will get "The father bit the dog", which is not correct.

Interesting; I wasn't aware that there was an audio recording to go along with this. I'll have to check it out. Thank you for the info and for clearing that up! Now, back to reading!

Nedankinde. I got the recording from Librivox; you should be able to find it on their site. It's pretty much just a straight reading of the text and exercises, so it's not really ideal as a sole source (I used it as a refresher and as listening/speaking practice). For example, one of the (many) readers reads all of the questions and then all of the exercises, which makes them pretty useless unless you have a stellar memory. A few of the readers read the solution after each question to make it more useful, though.

kaŝperanto:

hahamango:

You are indeed correct that these are "mistakes", but the author intended to use them to illustrate that English is ambiguous without a strict word ordering (while Esperanto is not). It is a little strange to show incorrect English to illustrate this point rather than simply explaining it. I personally listened to the audio recording of the book first, and the reader made use of inflection to attempt to make this clearer. He read it with inflection like, "THE FATHER, bit the dog" (a strong emphasis on the father). I would describe it like he was answering someone who asked "Who did the dog bite?"

It's almost like they are showing you how you lose information when translating (word-by-word) from Esperanto into English. In fact, if you go to Google Translate and type in "La patron mordis la hundo" you will get "The father bit the dog", which is not correct.

Interesting; I wasn't aware that there was an audio recording to go along with this. I'll have to check it out. Thank you for the info and for clearing that up! Now, back to reading!

Nedankinde. I got the recording from Librivox; you should be able to find it on their site. It's pretty much just a straight reading of the text and exercises, so it's not really ideal as a sole source (I used it as a refresher and as listening/speaking practice). For example, one of the (many) readers reads all of the questions and then all of the exercises, which makes them pretty useless unless you have a stellar memory. A few of the readers read the solution after each question to make it more useful, though.

That sounds really useful to supplement the book. I just watched a conversation in Esperanto on YouTube and it sounded slightly different than I imagined it. I think the audio will help get my pronunciation just right.