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Translating an English indirect speech into Esperanto

de robinast, 2008-decembro-18

Mesaĝoj: 19

Lingvo: English

robinast (Montri la profilon) 2008-decembro-18 20:25:13

How do I translate the sentence

"He said (that) he came from New York."

into Esperanto?

"Li diris, ke li venis de Nov-Jorko."
or
"Li diris, ke li venas de Nov-Jorko."

Harri.

Matthieu (Montri la profilon) 2008-decembro-18 20:43:17

The latter is correct.

In Esperanto, the agreement of tenses doesn't work like in English. "Li diris, ke li venis de Nov-Jorko" is correct too, but it means "He said he had come from New York."

And "Li diris, ke li venos de Nov-Jorko" means "He said he would come from New York".

robinast (Montri la profilon) 2008-decembro-18 20:58:24

Mutusen:The latter is correct.

In Esperanto, the agreement of tenses doesn't work like in English. "Li diris, ke li venis de Nov-Jorko" is correct too, but it means "He said he had come from New York."

And "Li diris, ke li venos de Nov-Jorko" means "He said he would come from New York".
Thanks! rideto.gif Exactly what I thought. But that means that here is a mistake...
At the end of the lesson, in a table that is supposed to explain things.
EDIT:
If "to come from" and "veni de" are idioms, then "He said (that) he came from New York." is "Li diris, ke li venis de Nov-Jorko." And then the mistake is not in the lesson linked above but in my poor understanding of idioms... rido.gif
Amike,
Harri.

Matthieu (Montri la profilon) 2008-decembro-18 21:08:41

Well, maybe I'm mistaken too. In "He said he came", does "he came" happen before "he said"?

What I said would make more sense if the sentence was "He said he was coming".

robinast (Montri la profilon) 2008-decembro-18 21:21:35

Mutusen: In "He said he came", does "he came" happen before "he said"?
It's not known. But if so, shouldn't the sentence be "He said he has come"?

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2008-decembro-19 02:48:17

Technically it should be "He said that he had come" but in colloquial English, people would commonly say "He said he came".

"He said he has come" would not be a very good translation. In Esperanto I would say that "Li diris ke li estas veninta" (one of these messy compound tenses that should be avoided)

mvk20 (Montri la profilon) 2008-decembro-19 12:35:28

So, just to make sure that I understand, the "Li diris" part means that he said it in the past, and the tense of the next verb indicates the time of the "veni" when compared with the timing of the "diri"? That would mean that the tense of "veni" has nothing to do with when that happened in comparison to now. So if you say, "Li diris, ke li venos," it could mean that both actions took place in the past, but the "venos" happened after the "diris", right?

danielcg (Montri la profilon) 2008-decembro-19 16:16:00

Reported (or indirect) speech in Esperanto is really simple, but alas, when I came to know it I already spoke two languages where it is more complicated (Spanish and English), and so the simplicity of Esperanto sort of confused me at first. But trust me, it's really simple.

In most cases you just do the following.

First think of the phrase in direct speech:

Li diris: "Mi estis infano, nun estas plenkreskulo kaj iam estos maljuna".

(He said: "I was a child, now am an adult and someday will be old")

Now add "ke", do away with the quotation marks, and change only the pronoun:

Li diris ke li estis infano, nun estas plenkreskulo kaj iam estos maljuna.

(He said that he had been a child, now was an adult and someday would be old)

Regards,

Daniel

Miland (Montri la profilon) 2008-decembro-19 21:34:21

mvk20:So, just to make sure that I understand..if you say, "Li diris, ke li venos," it could mean that both actions took place in the past, but the "venos" happened after the "diris", right?
Yes. In Esperanto, unlike in English, the tense of reported and direct speech is the same. The tense of direct speech, of course is determined by the perspective of the time of speaking; hence (in Esperanto) so is that of reported speech.

Another example:

Li diris je 8 ptm, "Mi iros ekstere, mangxos, kaj revenos je 9 ptm."

Li diris je 8 ptm ke li iros ekstere, mangxos, kaj revenos je 9 ptm.

robinast (Montri la profilon) 2008-decembro-21 08:11:57

Thanks to all for your explanations!
I think I understood at once how the Esperanto language uses the reported speech... but I continue to get messages like this from my tutor:

He said he was unhappy. [happy = feliĉa] (a sentence to be translated)
Li diris, ke li estas malfeliĉa. (my translation)

ERROR: ...estIS malfeliĉa. WAS unhappy. (the tutor's comment)

He also refuses to explain in which I have mistaken, saying that this is not important. And I myself do not see any reasons why I must not take the backshift of tenses into account here...

Estonian language unlike the English (and like the Esperanto) does not use the backshift of tenses in the reported speech, so the way how Esperanto deals with the indirect speech seems very natural to me rideto.gif

Amike,
Harri.

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