Kaerigan:"eltrovi" means "to invent" (at least according to the dictionary).

Benson has sciiĝi, eltrovi and malkovri all as alternative renderings for 'find out'. PIV 2005 indicates that all three mean equally to find out, and to discover something not known before. In Butler's dictionary, while eltrovi can mean both to find out and to discover, ekscio means a sudden insight, so ekscii may relate more to creativity in research than finding something out in 'ordinary' life.

Thank you for the excellent explanation, RiotNrrd. I'll try to put what I've learned about "tiun" and "kiu" to good use. There isn't any magical and easy way of telling if a verb is intransitive, is there...? Anyways, thanks again.

Miland:

Kaerigan:"eltrovi" means "to invent" (at least according to the dictionary).

Benson has sciiĝi, eltrovi and malkovri all as alternative renderings for 'find out'. PIV 2005 indicates that all three mean equally to find out, and to discover something not known before. In Butler's dictionary, while eltrovi can mean both to find out and to discover, ekscio means a sudden insight, so ekscii may relate more to creativity in research than finding something out in 'ordinary' life.

Ah, I see. Thanks to you as well. Sciigxi does sound more logical than ekscii, now that I think about it. I still have a long way to go ^_^

There isn't any magical and easy way of telling if a verb is intransitive, is there...?

Unfortunately, there isn't. It's just one of those things that needs to be memorized on a per-verb basis.

Well, if I could learn the insanity that is the verbs of Swedish (there's basically no rules. At all), I think I'll be fine. Thank you again.

RiotNrrd:"Ekscii" would work just as well as "malkovri". In English I use "discover", "determine", or "find out" pretty much interchangeably, so my Esperanto word choice comes from that.

Something bugged me about the use of "ekscii" in this context, but I had to ponder it a while before I could put my finger on it. Then I realized that "scii" denotes a passive experience rather than an action, so you can't say "*Mi decidis scii tion", for example. "Ekscii" should follow the same rule. English often blurs the distinction, so that, for instance, Google finds almost a million hits for "decided to know". Similarly, "see" is used instead of "look", "hear" instead of "listen" and so on, but I don't see any reason to bring that peculiar habit into Esperanto.

Why did I put "tiun" in the sentence? (...)

For example, if I were to translate the sentence

"I'll go to the store when she gets back",

I would write it as

"Mi iros al la vendejo tiam, kiam ŝi revenos".

In this case the "tiam, kiam" pair simply means "when" used as a statement instead of as a question. As with "tiu" (above, in the accusative), the "tiam" could be dropped, but you will frequently see this type of construction as it marks how "kiam" is being used a little more clearly. In this sentence "kiam" is not being used to ask a question, but instead to make a statement about the time that I will go to the store, and this is indicated more clearly by the use of "tiam".

I think "tiun" is wrong, because "kiu" starts an indirect question rather than a relative clause. Compare the following sentences (leaving out the "decidis", which would make the distinction more complicated but not eliminate it):

Se sxi revenos ekzemple je la 11-a horo, mi iros al la vendejo je la 11-a horo.

?Se ekzemple Belmano povos resti plej longe en la porkejo, ili malkovros Belmanon.

The first one, IMHO, conveys the meaning of your example quite well, but the second one would make me go "Huh?" and leave me scratching my head.

Kaerigan:Well, if I could learn the insanity that is the verbs of Swedish (there's basically no rules. At all), I think I'll be fine. Thank you again.

Oh, there are many more rules in your mother tongue than you know. The unknown portion might be relatively small if you're a professional linguist specializing in your native language, but I don't believe it can be non-existent. I learned lots of rules about Swedish verbs at school, but I've forgotten most of them. On the other hand, I've learned quite a few Finnish grammar rules from the textbooks of my foreign friends studying Finnish. The problem is, I tend to forget those too.

taneli, how would you translate the second sentence, then? I am still very new at Esperanto and can't really construct a correct sentence from the information you've given me.

taneli:

Kaerigan:Well, if I could learn the insanity that is the verbs of Swedish (there's basically no rules. At all), I think I'll be fine. Thank you again.

Oh, there are many more rules in your mother tongue than you know. The unknown portion might be relatively small if you're a professional linguist specializing in your native language, but I don't believe it can be non-existent. I learned lots of rules about Swedish verbs at school, but I've forgotten most of them. On the other hand, I've learned quite a few Finnish grammar rules from the textbooks of my foreign friends studying Finnish. The problem is, I tend to forget those too.

Yes, yes, of course there are rules, but I can't help it - I don't like my mother language and therefore I spit out nonsense like that.

Also, I don't really want to start a new thread for this small question... since it's so small, so here goes:

Why and when should one use "l'" instead of "la" (if I haven't misunderstood its use)? I encountered this in an article on Lord of the Rings (La Mastro de l' Ringoj). Is this just some style used to make Esperanto look all fancy or something?

Replacing “la” with “l’” is like removing the final “-o”. Theoretically, you can do this whenever you want, but it seems that it's used mainly in poetry.

Kaerigan:Why and when should one use "l'" instead of "la" (if I haven't misunderstood its use)? I encountered this in an article on Lord of the Rings (La Mastro de l' Ringoj). Is this just some style used to make Esperanto look all fancy or something?

Precisely.

It helps in poetry, and whenever you think you can make your sentence flow better.

I almost never use l', but then again I'm not a poet!

I think I remember someone telling me, when I was a beginner, that you should use the full article (la) when removing the last vowel could cause ambiguity in speech. For example, l'afero sounds pretty close to la fero, therefore you should say la afero (possibly with a glottal stop). I can't confirm whether this is a rule or not, but personally I always thought that it makes sense.