I'm interested in how to translate the meaning of the phrase "what it's like". Example usage is below:

1. Mary told John what it's like to be a doctor.
2. Mary told John what it's like to kill someone.

For example, 1 means that Mary conveyed to John what being a doctor entails, what the experience of being a doctor is like, etc.

So it's not the case that you can just say that Mary is telling john what is similar to being a doctor (despite the word "like" ), since she's conveying exactly what it is to be a doctor.

Do these below make sense? They seem a little off to me, almost like they're saying that Mary told John in the way that doctors tell John:

1. Mary diris al John kiel ĝi estas esti kuracisto.
2. Mary diris al John kiel ĝi estas iun mortigi.

What's the best way of translating these? Should I just use "kio" instead of "kiel"?

EldanarLambetur:I'm interested in how to translate the meaning of the phrase "what it's like". Example usage is below:

1. Mary told John what it's like to be a doctor.
2. Mary told John what it's like to kill someone.

For example, 1 means that Mary conveyed to John what being a doctor entails, what the experience of being a doctor is like, etc.

So it's not the case that you can just say that Mary is telling john what is similar to being a doctor (despite the word "like" ), since she's conveying exactly what it is to be a doctor.

Do these below make sense? They seem a little off to me, almost like they're saying that Mary told John in the way that doctors tell John:

1. Mary diris al John kiel ĝi estas esti kuracisto.
2. Mary diris al John kiel ĝi estas iun mortigi.

What's the best way of translating these? Should I just use "kio" instead of "kiel"?

I am not sure, but I think Esperanto doesn't have a cataphoric "ĝi" in the sense English has a cataphoric "it".

Killing someone is horrible.
Or cataphoric: It is horrible to kill someone. ("it" being a cataphor to "to kill someone".)
Mortigi iun estas abomene. (Cf. "Resti kun leono estas danĝere".)

Now replacing "abomene" with an interrogative:

Kiel estas mortigi iun?

Hence, in your examples I would drop the "ĝi", because otherwise you have to subjects: "mortigi iun" and the cataphoric "ĝi".

About the question whether to use "kio" or "kiel", I personally would interpret the first as "What does being a doctor mean" (Answer: a lot of responsibilities, horrible working hours, etc), and the latter "What is it like to be a doctor" (Answer: awesome, but stressing).

D: Kio estas mortigi iun?
R: Mortigi iun estas grava krimo.

D: Kiel estas mortigi iun?
R: Mortigi iun estas abomene kaj terure.

I agree with nornen. The question word usually seeks a specific category of answer. Hence we use the weird word "kioma" when asking about time or floors of a building, and here since the answer is an adverb (though it's a quirk of Esperanto), "kiel" seems to me the best option.

DuckFiasco:I agree with nornen. The question word usually seeks a specific category of answer. Hence we use the weird word "kioma" when asking about time or floors of a building, and here since the answer is an adverb (though it's a quirk of Esperanto), "kiel" seems to me the best option.

I agree with both. "Esti kuracisto" is the subject in the phrase "kiel estas esti kuracisto", so no pronoun is needed.

For what it's worth, in Spanish we would place no pronoun in that phrase ("¿cómo es ser médico?" and not "¿cómo es eso ser médico?", though it would be possible, with a slightly different nuance, to say "¿cómo es eso de ser médico"?). Of course, just like English, Spanish has no guarantee at all about logic and coherence.

Regards,

Daniel

1. Mary told John what it's like to be a doctor

'What it's like' prompts us to use kia, but the problem is finding a noun for 'being a doctor'.

A solution might be :

Mary rakontis, kia estas la sperto esti kuracisto,
or with a slightly different meaning,
Mary rakontis, kia estas la kuracista vivo

Zamenhof was not so absolutist about the use of the adverb, using the adjective when this made it clearer. (He also sometimes used ĝi en the tio sense.)

However, Kia estas, esti kuracisto? is probably too experimental compared to Kiel estas, esti kuracisto?