bartlett22183:

Zam_franca:

bartlett22183:I also find the correlatives confusing, hard to remember, and hard to use. The Ido system is much clearer and easier for me.

The Ido system is not logical at all for someone who does not speak an Indo-European language. Ask the users from China, Finland, Iran or Japan here what they prefer.

There is a difference between being logical and being familiar or easy to use. The E-o correlatives may have a certain structural logic to them, but that does not necessarily make them easier or less confusing to use for everybody, if their minds do not run along those tracks. Not everything that is "logical" is always easy. And I was referring to myself, not speaking for everyone. (And incidentally, Farsi, spoken in Iran, is an Indo-European language.)

Farsi doesn't contain words like *kand*, *lore*, *sempre*, *nultempe*, as far as I know.
I was not clear, you are right. I'm talking about the north-west Indo-european part (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langues_indo-europ%C...).

Esperanto's correlatives does have a structural logic. I'm not saying there are easy to learn, but they are way easier to learn than Ido's ones!!
If you know the words "ĉiam" and "tiu", you know "tiam" and "ĉiu". Can one guess the correkarives like this?

Yes, you were referring to yourself. Some Ido correlatives are certainly easier to learn for me too. But not for everyone. Ido is not an easy language for everyone at all.
Esperanto has bad points: in Ido they are amplified.
At least in Eo the language aims to be simple to learn. Ido seems to aim to be easy to learn... for those who speaks a western language.

PrimeMinisterK:

schnellfenster:There are transitive and intransitive verbs. A transitive takes an object. For example, she eats an apple.. something else other than the eater is affected.. the apple. Again, in a sentence like I beat eggs.. the action of the verb directly affects the object, in other words something is beaten, the eggs.

Verbs like run, walk, come, fall are passive or reflexive in the sense that they only affect the subject and so are intransitive.

Re correlatives, it's easier to learn the handful of affixes and their functions rather than memorise the 45 individual words that their combos make. So if for example you remember that ki- prefixes a question; cxi-, a universal term; and if you memorise the suffixes, knowing that say -am signifies time or -om, quantity, then you can connect those modular elements to meet the needs of yr expression.

So the subject (or whatever the proper word is) when an intransitive verb is in use does not receive the accusative -n?

I think I'm getting it, but can you provide a few more examples?

The easiest way to check if a given verb is transitive or intransitive is to use it in a simple sentence to see if it can take an object..

I beat.
She eats.
We play.
He wrecks.
They kick.

Even though these are sentences more or less as they stand they beg the obvious questions; beat what? eat what? play what? wrecks what? kick what?

Beat eggs, eats an apple, play poker, wrecks a sandcastle, kick the ball.

Making similar sentences with intransitive verbs however you'll see that they don't need, nor can they take, an object to make sense. Simple though they are their meaning is self-contained.

I run.
He falls.
You sneeze.
They stay.
She sleeps.

We don't (and can't) ask run what? falls what? sneezes what? etc. In other words they cannot take a direct object.

Zam_franca:

bartlett22183:

Zam_franca:

bartlett22183:I also find the correlatives confusing, hard to remember, and hard to use. The Ido system is much clearer and easier for me.

The Ido system is not logical at all for someone who does not speak an Indo-European language. Ask the users from China, Finland, Iran or Japan here what they prefer.

There is a difference between being logical and being familiar or easy to use. The E-o correlatives may have a certain structural logic to them, but that does not necessarily make them easier or less confusing to use for everybody, if their minds do not run along those tracks. Not everything that is "logical" is always easy. And I was referring to myself, not speaking for everyone. (And incidentally, Farsi, spoken in Iran, is an Indo-European language.)

Farsi doesn't contain words like *kand*, *lore*, *sempre*, *nultempe*, as far as I know.
I was not clear, you are right. I'm talking about the north-west Indo-european part (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langues_indo-europ%C...).

Esperanto's correlatives does have a structural logic. I'm not saying there are easy to learn, but they are way easier to learn than Ido's ones!!
If you know the words "ĉiam" and "tiu", you know "tiam" and "ĉiu". Can one guess the correkarives like this?

Yes, you were referring to yourself. Some Ido correlatives are certainly easier to learn for me too. But not for everyone. Ido is not an easy language for everyone at all.
Esperanto has bad points: in Ido they are amplified.
At least in Eo the language aims to be simple to learn. Ido seems to aim to be easy to learn... for those who speaks a western language.

Different things for different people. Speaking only for myself, and not for anyone else, I find Ido easier and in some sense better than Esperanto. If neither had been presented before and were being presented side by side for the first time today, I myself would choose Ido. But I acknowledge that different individuals would make other choices.

why doesn't personoj receive the -n since it's the focus of venis?

Personoj doesn't receive the -n because it's the subject, not the object. The personoj are the ones doing, not the ones being done to.

Don't be fooled by the word order, which is more flexible than in English. In this case an English word order orientation may (will) be giving you misleading signals. If it helps, you may reorganize the sentence into an English order:

Iuj personoj venis, kiujn mi ne konas.

The subject is always the doer in the sentence and is not marked. The direct object is whatever is being done to, and is the one that gets the -n. If something has no -n, it's not the direct object. This is precisely why Esperanto's word order is as flexible as it is: the direct object is always clearly marked, so you can move it around a lot more freely than in English, which is pretty solidly SVO (subject-verb-object). Your example sentence in Esperanto was expressed as VS (verb-subject), and we can tell that is the case by the lack of -n's (and the intransitivity of "veni", but the lack of -n's is the real tip-off for me when reading).

bartlett22183:

Zam_franca:

bartlett22183:

Zam_franca:

bartlett22183:I also find the correlatives confusing, hard to remember, and hard to use. The Ido system is much clearer and easier for me.

The Ido system is not logical at all for someone who does not speak an Indo-European language. Ask the users from China, Finland, Iran or Japan here what they prefer.

There is a difference between being logical and being familiar or easy to use. The E-o correlatives may have a certain structural logic to them, but that does not necessarily make them easier or less confusing to use for everybody, if their minds do not run along those tracks. Not everything that is "logical" is always easy. And I was referring to myself, not speaking for everyone. (And incidentally, Farsi, spoken in Iran, is an Indo-European language.)

Farsi doesn't contain words like *kand*, *lore*, *sempre*, *nultempe*, as far as I know.
I was not clear, you are right. I'm talking about the north-west Indo-european part (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langues_indo-europ%C...).

Esperanto's correlatives does have a structural logic. I'm not saying there are easy to learn, but they are way easier to learn than Ido's ones!!
If you know the words "ĉiam" and "tiu", you know "tiam" and "ĉiu". Can one guess the correkarives like this?

Yes, you were referring to yourself. Some Ido correlatives are certainly easier to learn for me too. But not for everyone. Ido is not an easy language for everyone at all.
Esperanto has bad points: in Ido they are amplified.
At least in Eo the language aims to be simple to learn. Ido seems to aim to be easy to learn... for those who speaks a western language.

Different things for different people. Speaking only for myself, and not for anyone else, I find Ido easier and in some sense better than Esperanto. If neither had been presented before and were being presented side by side for the first time today, I myself would choose Ido. But I acknowledge that different individuals would make other choices.

Sed kion faras vi en Esperantista forumo, idioto*?
Certe estas multlingva forumo. Certe. Sed ne ekzistas Ido-lingva versio!

* en Esperanto, sinonimo de "idisto"

Metsis:
I guess, you're being put off by English. English is notorious for lacking mark-up or any marks that would reveal the role of a word. It mainly relies on word order and context. It has "how" (in which way) for kiel and "how much" for kiom, which might lead some to think that there are two Esperanto words for "how".

One example would be Tiu vs Tio.

As far as I can tell, they essentially mean the same thing, or at least they are close enough in meaning that it's very easy to mix them up and not intuitively know which one to use in any given circumstance.

Metsis:
Kio is the general asking correlative, when you don't know anything about the thing you're asking about. Using Sudanglo's examples
 

• Kion vi volas? : What do you want?

You use kiu, when you have a set of things of which you're referring to one. Say you're in café to buy to a baked good. Then you can ask
 

• Kiu estas la plej malmultekosta? : Which is the cheapest?

i.e. the set is all baked goods in that café. If no other context is given, you assume "humans".
 

• Kiu vi estas? : Who are you?

----

Sergejm kaj Schnellfenster pravas. The separation to transitive and intransitive ones is very important. English tend to cut corners and often uses same verb for different things. Compare for instance
 

• He opens the door.
  
• The door opens.

where the first "open" is a transitive verb, i.e. takes a direct object (the door), but the second "open" is a so called reflexive verb (one of the intransitive types), which denotes that the action affects the subject (the door) itself. In English these two verbs look the same, but for many other languages, incl. Esperanto, don't.
 

• Li malfermas la pordon : He opens the door.
  
• La pordo malfermiĝas : The door opens.

Thanks. That's very helpful.

I will have to consider this further and see if I can get it drilled into head.

schnellfenster:
The easiest way to check if a given verb is transitive or intransitive is to use it in a simple sentence to see if it can take an object..

I beat.
She eats.
We play.
He wrecks.
They kick.

Even though these are sentences more or less as they stand they beg the obvious questions; beat what? eat what? play what? wrecks what? kick what?

Beat eggs, eats an apple, play poker, wrecks a sandcastle, kick the ball.

Making similar sentences with intransitive verbs however you'll see that they don't need, nor can they take, an object to make sense. Simple though they are their meaning is self-contained.

I run.
He falls.
You sneeze.
They stay.
She sleeps.

We don't (and can't) ask run what? falls what? sneezes what? etc. In other words they cannot take a direct object.

Thanks, that makes sense. I believe it will take some practice but that at least explains it in a way that I can understand.

Does this mean then that you would say La viro iris al la vedejo, and not La viro iris al la vendejon?

RiotNrrd:why doesn't personoj receive the -n since it's the focus of venis?

Personoj doesn't receive the -n because it's the subject, not the object. The personoj are the ones doing, not the ones being done to.

Don't be fooled by the word order, which is more flexible than in English. In this case an English word order orientation may (will) be giving you misleading signals. If it helps, you may reorganize the sentence into an English order:

Iuj personoj venis, kiujn mi ne konas.

The subject is always the doer in the sentence and is not marked. The direct object is whatever is being done to, and is the one that gets the -n. If something has no -n, it's not the direct object. This is precisely why Esperanto's word order is as flexible as it is: the direct object is always clearly marked, so you can move it around a lot more freely than in English, which is pretty solidly SVO (subject-verb-object). Your example sentence in Esperanto was expressed as VS (verb-subject), and we can tell that is the case by the lack of -n's (and the intransitivity of "veni", but the lack of -n's is the real tip-off for me when reading).

Okay, I see. Thank you. I think it may take some mental work to always recognize the subject and the direct object. It seems like writing this way is difficult enough; I can't imagine trying to mark the accusative on fly when speaking. Sounds like a nightmare.

PrimeMinisterK:

Urho:Jen 100 bazaj verboj de Esperanto (ĉe la lernu!-forumo).

Urho:Jen utila bildo de Tabelvortoj (korelativoj)

Awesome, thanks!

By the way, what is your use of Jen here? My understanding is that it means "Look! or Behold!" Does it have a difference nuance here in your sentence?

jen =
• (eng) here is/are
• (rus) вот [vot]
• (fin) kas tässä, tässä

PrimeMinisterK:
...
Okay, I see. Thank you. I think it may take some mental work to always recognize the subject and the direct object. It seems like writing this way is difficult enough; I can't imagine trying to mark the accusative on fly when speaking. Sounds like a nightmare.

It seems to me that even in english, the accusative case is not a totally unknown concept.
"me" looks like the accusative form of "I", "him" as the accusative of "he", etc.
One says : "I see them", not "I see they". "them" looks like the accusative form of "they".