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Use of "kia"

de PrimeMinisterK, 6 de marzo de 2022

Aportes: 16

Idioma: English

PrimeMinisterK (Mostrar perfil) 6 de marzo de 2022 21:05:30

Kia is one of those correlatives that I have had a hard time getting my head around. The dictionary definition is "what kind of, what sort of," but when I plug this into a sentence that actually uses "kia" it doesn't seem to render anything particularly intelligible.

Can someone clarify this correlative for me and explain exactly how it's used?

nornen (Mostrar perfil) 7 de marzo de 2022 08:29:49

You use "kia" (which is an a-word) when you ask for an adjective (a-word).

Kia estas via vivo? - Ĝi estas bona.

Kiaj estas viaj hundoj? - Unu estas dika, alia estas maldika.

Kian preferas vi vian teon? - Prefereble nigran.

Kiajn ŝuojn vi aĉetis? - Nigrajn.

The same way you use "tie, kie", "tiu, kiu", etc you can use "tia, kia".

Ili havis tian teon, kian mi preferas.

Ili vendas precize tiajn ŝuojn, kiajn mi serĉas.

PrimeMinisterK (Mostrar perfil) 8 de marzo de 2022 07:22:50

Thanks for the response.

So it sounds like it would properly translate to "how."

How is your life? How are your dogs? How do you like your tea?

Is that right?

Roberto12 (Mostrar perfil) 8 de marzo de 2022 10:11:20

Good ol' Kellerman covers kia (at Gutenberg) and there's also ReVo. The dictionary definition of "what kind of, what sort of" is accurate, and as such, it seeks not only A-word answers, but O-words and phrases.

Metsis (Mostrar perfil) 9 de marzo de 2022 07:53:42

PrimeMinisterK:
So it sounds like it would properly translate to "how."

How is your life? How are your dogs? How do you like your tea?

Is that right?
As a general rule I would be very cautious to say that A always gets translated to B. Here I would rather stick to the definition and see the examples given by Roberto and Nornen. It might well be that sometimes translating to "how" will give you a more idiomatic English expression, but that is not the definition.

For instance
 
  • Kia estas via vivo? – How is your life?
  • Kiel vi fartas? – How are you?

nornen (Mostrar perfil) 9 de marzo de 2022 14:47:57

I concur with Metsis. The problem is that in English (and most Germanic languages) the question word "how" serves two main purposes: ask for an adverbial and ask for a predicative noun. I suppose this has to do with the fact that in Germanic languages (unlike e.g. Esperanto, Romance and Slavic languages) predicate nouns aren't in agreement with its precedent and therefore are uninflected.

In Esperanto just ask yourself what your expected answer is: If it is a quality or a state (generally an a-word), then use kia/j/n. If it is an adverbial of manner (generally an e-word or e-like expression), then use kiel.

Q: How do you like your tea?
A: Of a black quality and in a hot state.

Hence:
Q: Kian vi preferas vian teon?
A: Nigran kaj varmegan.

Q: How do you love your wife?
A: In a wholeheartedly manner/way.

Hence:
Q: Kiel vi amas vian edzinon?
A: Tutkore.

- - - -

Now, if you are the answerer and not the questioner, it is easier:

Kiajn vi elektis? (Obviously asking for a quality or state)
La nigrajn.

Kiel vi elektis? (Obviously asking for a manner/way)
Spontanee kaj senpense.

PrimeMinisterK (Mostrar perfil) 10 de marzo de 2022 08:21:54

Roberto12:Good ol' Kellerman covers kia (at Gutenberg) and there's also ReVo. The dictionary definition of "what kind of, what sort of" is accurate, and as such, it seeks not only A-word answers, but O-words and phrases.
The problem with translating it as "what kind of, what sort of" is that if you think about it literally it's very confusing.

For instance, consider Nornen's question, "Kia estas via vivo?" And you don't know the word "kia" so you look it up in the dictionary and it says "what kind of, what sort of." So then you think, "What kind of is your life?" Oh, that's gibberish. Let me try: "What sort of is your life?" Well, still gibberish.

So you walk away as confused as you were before you went to the dictionary.

PrimeMinisterK (Mostrar perfil) 10 de marzo de 2022 08:25:05

Metsis:As a general rule I would be very cautious to say that A always gets translated to B. Here I would rather stick to the definition and see the examples given by Roberto and Nornen. It might well be that sometimes translating to "how" will give you a more idiomatic English expression, but that is not the definition.

For instance
 
  • Kia estas via vivo? – How is your life?
  • Kiel vi fartas? – How are you?
Is "how" really an idiom though?

In any case, we know how languages are. Just because one word can translate to how doesn't mean that another can't also. They could at least include "how" as one of the English definitions listed.

PrimeMinisterK (Mostrar perfil) 10 de marzo de 2022 08:30:19

nornen:I concur with Metsis. The problem is that in English (and most Germanic languages) the question word "how" serves two main purposes: ask for an adverbial and ask for a predicative noun. I suppose this has to do with the fact that in Germanic languages (unlike e.g. Esperanto, Romance and Slavic languages) predicate nouns aren't in agreement with its precedent and therefore are uninflected.

Etc. . .
Thanks.

I think that what I'll need to do is look at a ton of examples for these. There are some correlatives which seem very straightforward to me and easy to grasp. Kie, nenio and kiam would all fall into that category. But then there are others, like kia, and tio and tiu, which are requiring a lot more work.

sudanglo (Mostrar perfil) 10 de marzo de 2022 13:54:47

Just bang your head against the wall and say 'Kia idioto!'. You will soon get the hang of it. You can then progress to hurling abuse at others with the same phrase.

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