I am always ending up in situations while trying to write in Esperanto where I have something in my head in English that I'm trying to figure out how to say in Esperanto and just can't do it. I figured I would start a thread for such situations. It's always random stuff and maybe you guys will be nice enough to help me out.

Here's my first example. Take the following phrase:

"His books, which often focused on. . ."

Leafing through the dictionaries, I can't seem to find an Esperanto equivalent for "focused on." For instance, let's say you want to say:

"His books, which often focused on the individual's responsibility to be a good citizen, are popular among conservative Americans."

How would you go about translating that sentence?

When an artistical work A focuses on a thing B, it means that B is the theme of A, and therefore very often you use the verb temi pri io in Esperanto.
 

• Liaj libroj/verkoj, kiuj ofte temas pri individua respondeco pri esti bona civitano/membro de socio, estas popularaj inter konservativaj usonanoj/amerikanoj.

Note that usonanoj refers to usonians, US-citizens, while amerikanoj to anybody from Canada to Chile. Choose after what your "Americans" mean.

Note that traditionally (see Lingva respondo 128) you do not put an infinitive after pri but rather rewrite it to a noun. For instance Jes, mi revas pri geedziĝi kun mia sekreta amo → …pri geediziĝo kun…. But here with esti you probably have to rewrite more, since the noun esto is very rarely used and when used it carries a meaning of "existence" rather than simple "being". Personally I have no problem having pri + i-verbo.

I admit it took awhile for me to get used to the use of the verb temi, since in my native language there is no verb that would resemble the word "theme" rather the verb commonly used in this context corresponds to the English verb "to handle", e.g. "He handles the topic briefly in his book." In essence
 

• temo : a theme
  
• temi pri : (tr) handle (in an artistical work)

Of course there is the noun fokuso, from which you can ,at least in theory, create a verb fokusi, but such verb is rarely used and not even taken up in PIV. Instead PIV gives the verb enfokusigi and naturally there is the -iĝi variant. A quick look at Tekstaro gives that the case governance for it seems to be with the preposition al, i.e. enfokusiĝi al io. While I can live with pri + i-verbo, al + i-verbo would be too much to me, so this sparks some rewriting, like
 

• Liaj libroj, kiuj ofte fokusiĝas al la temo pri individua respondeco kiel esti bona membro de socio, estas…

Thanks as always for the response.

Metsis:When an artistical work A focuses on a thing B, it means that B is the theme of A, and therefore very often you use the verb temi pri io[/url] in Esperanto.

It's interesting that you bring this up, because I have run into this verb a few times recently and have looked it up but had a hard time figuring out how exactly it's used. It's one of those verbs where the dictionary definition doesn't seem to really explain it.

Metsis:Liaj libroj/verkoj, kiuj ofte temas pri individua respondeco pri esti bona civitano/membro de socio, estas popularaj inter konservativaj usonanoj/amerikanoj.

Okay. . .

So let's say I wanted to say, "Right now I'm watching a documentary about the Roman Empire." Would I say:

Nun mi spektas dokumentarion, kiu temas pri la Romian Imperion.

Would that be correct?

Metsis:
Note that traditionally (see Lingva respondo 128) you do not put an infinitive after pri but rather rewrite it to a noun. For instance Jes, mi revas pri geedziĝi kun mia sekreta amo → …pri geediziĝo kun…. But here with esti you probably have to rewrite more, since the noun esto is very rarely used and when used it carries a meaning of "existence" rather than simple "being". Personally I have no problem having pri + i-verbo.

I guess my question is why do you need "pri" at all in this case? My initial reaction is to just write "respondeco esti" (though there IS something inside of me that says that's probably not right, but I have no idea why).

Metsis:I admit it took awhile for me to get used to the use of the verb temi, since in my native language there is no verb that would resemble the word "theme" rather the verb commonly used in this context corresponds to the English verb "to handle", e.g. "He handles the topic briefly in his book." In essence
 

• temo : a theme
  
• temi pri : (tr) handle (in an artistical work)

Yeah, well like I said, I have run into "temi" a few times recently and wasn't quite sure what to do with it.

However, you mention that "temo" means "theme." The word I have seen it most often translated as is "subject," which I think of as having a bit of different meaning. However, looking temo up right now I am given a definition of "subject, theme, topic."

Metsis:Of course there is the noun fokuso, from which you can ,at least in theory, create a verb fokusi, but such verb is rarely used and not even taken up in PIV. Instead PIV gives the verb enfokusigi and naturally there is the -iĝi variant. A quick look at Tekstaro gives that the case governance for it seems to be with the preposition al, i.e. enfokusiĝi al io. While I can live with pri + i-verbo, al + i-verbo would be too much to me, so this sparks some rewriting, like
 

• Liaj libroj, kiuj ofte fokusiĝas al la temo pri individua respondeco kiel esti bona membro de socio, estas…

Fokusi shows up as a definition of "to focus" at bab.la but I did notice that PIV wasn't aware of the word.

Google Translate gives "temigi," which I've never heard before, and which bab.la doesn't seem to have heard of either. PIV has it but I can't really understand the definition.

I'll point out, since you say "fokusiĝas al," that another thing that has REALLY been tripping me up is when to use "al" and when not to. It seems that some verbs are just expected to be paired up with "al," but in many of these cases the pairing seems unnatural to me and I can't figure out the rhyme and reason.

"His books, which often focused on the individual's responsibility to be a good citizen, are popular among conservative Americans."

How would you go about translating that sentence?

Mi persone vortigus ĝin iel ĉi tiel:

Liaj libroj, kies fokuso ofte kuŝas sur la persona respondeco esti bona civitano, estas popularaj inter konservemaj ¿amerikanoj / usonanoj?.

Liaj libroj, kiuj ofte substrekas la personan respondecon esti bona civitano, estas popularaj inter konservemaj ¿amerikanoj / usonanoj?.

Liaj libroj, kiuj ĉefe pritraktas la personan respondecon esti bona civitano, estas popularaj inter konservemaj ¿amerikanoj / usonanoj?.

Temo ŝajnas al mi pli larĝa ol fokuso.

La temo de mia prelego estos internaciaj lingoj kun aparta fokuso sur la sukceson de Esperanto dum la postmilita periodo.

To add to what Nornen and Sudanglo said…

Temi pri could here indeed be a little bit vague.

The noun fokuso is better than any verb construction based on the same root. However I am not sure what preposition should follow the noun – based on a quick look at Tekstaro it could be en + nom.). In any case I personally find kuŝi in figurative sense very often strange, like here fokuso kuŝas instead of fokuso estas. The same quick look at Tekstaro revealed no hits of fokuso and kuŝ.

To me pritrakti necessitates an analysis which here strikes as overkill. If the works are fiction, perhaps priskribi with its more lighter touch would do.

nornen:Mi persone vortigus ĝin iel ĉi tiel:

Liaj libroj, kies fokuso ofte kuŝas sur la persona respondeco esti bona civitano, estas popularaj inter konservemaj ¿amerikanoj / usonanoj?.

Liaj libroj, kiuj ofte substrekas la personan respondecon esti bona civitano, estas popularaj inter konservemaj ¿amerikanoj / usonanoj?.

Liaj libroj, kiuj ĉefe pritraktas la personan respondecon esti bona civitano, estas popularaj inter konservemaj ¿amerikanoj / usonanoj?.

Thanks. Substreki and pritrakti seem like useful verbs that I was not yet aware of.

By the way, I am still working on my reply for our other discussion. It's coming, but it's a deep subject and I'm still trying to get my response right.

Got another one here:

How would you say "mean" in the sense of, "What I mean is that. . ." For instance, you might say:

"What I mean is that the movie is so good that you won't mind paying $15 to see it." That is, the sense of "mean" where you're clarifying what it is that you're intending to say or trying to explain.

For that matter, how would you say "mind" in the sense it's used in that sentence?