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ARRRGH! I'm dying!
ca, kivuye
Ubutumwa 7
ururimi: English
Novico Dektri (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 25 Rusama 2006 22:18:01
My two main problems in Esperanto? Word order and present tense. I'm been trying to 'rewire' my brain, so to speak, to understand Esperanto word order but no matter how hard I try it seems comepletely nonsensical to me.
Also, present tense is bothering me. La vortaro says that "learning" is "lernado", yet "studying" appears to have no translation. Is it "studado"?
I know that "Mi parolas Esperanton" is "I speak Esperanto."
What is "I am speaking Esperanto."? - "Mi parolado Esperanton."?
Oh yeah, I am so confused. I would be so grateful for some help.
Multajn dankojn, samideanoj.
Benjamin
boy-o (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 9 Ruheshi 2006 02:09:46
thus:
I am learning esperanto = Mi lernas esperanton. (I learn esperanto)
I am writing a paper = Mi skribas dokumenton. (I write [a] paper).
I am sleeping = Mi dormas (I sleep)
So as you are learning esperanto, try to start relegating present participles to actions that are currently-as-you-speak-in the-process-of happening. When you speak generally, use the present tense -as ending.
As for the course, I would stop by their headquaters and ask what's up.
Amike,
Stefano
Talking Pie (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 10 Ruheshi 2006 20:52:55
I have to ask, though (Novico Dektri): what about the Esperanto word order is causing you difficulty? It's relatively identical to that of English.
kavaliro (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 12 Ruheshi 2006 14:19:16
bananaclaw (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 12 Ruheshi 2006 19:21:40
"at work"
"al hejmo"
don't you mean 'prepositional' phrase?
wouldn't a participial phrase be like these, used as an adjective clause?
"sent in the mail"
"gone fishing"
"sendado posxte"
I say this because the first three start with a preposition and the second three start with a participle.
Sorry if that's wrong mi ne estas la plej bona esperantisto!
![lango.gif](/images/smileys/lango.gif)
RiotNrrd (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 13 Ruheshi 2006 02:19:06
If the noun comes after a preposition, it doesn't get an -n unless there's movement towards it. Assuming no movement, -n will NOT appear after words like pri, de, ĉe, je, en, sur, apud, sub, el, and so on.
The -n ending NEVER comes after estas. "Mi vidas knabon" (I see a boy), but "Mi estas knabo" (I am a boy).
You can apply these rules almost mechanically, without having to even think about them, and as far as I can tell you'll get it right.
The word order is mostly like English, so when you are composing a sentence you can pretty much just put it in the same order as you would in English. There are a few exceptions to this, mostly having to do with possessives - You can't say "My cats tail", for example; you have to say "The tail of my cat" (both are correct English word orders as well, actually, but only the second order will work in Esperanto because Esperanto doesn't have a possessive).
The only place that word order trips me up is when the subject-object is reversed, with an -n on the first noun. "Knabon vidas la kato" (while it means "The cat sees the boy", it is maybe better translated by "The boy is seen by the cat"). This word order sometimes takes me by surprise and I have to think for a moment before I can work out who is doing what to whom. In this case, the -n ending tells you that the cat is the one that is seeing and that the boy is the one being seen. But it's easy to miss the -n and rely solely on the word order to tell you what's going on - because that's how we do it in English - which would make you think that the boy is seeing the cat (which, while it might also be true, isn't what the sentence is telling us).
The fact that adjectives can come after the noun doesn't always sound right to English ears, but in fact English used to do this as well. We don't do it so much anymore, but if you read any Shakespeare you'll see it occur in lots of places. "I saw a lady fair" is quite understandable, but has a kind of medieval quality to it. Go to a rennaissance faire, and you'll hear that kind of word order relatively frequently.
Hope this helps!
100% cotton (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 27 Ruheshi 2006 01:53:53