Beiträge: 19
Sprache: English
robinast (Profil anzeigen) 18. Dezember 2008 20:25:13
"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 (Profil anzeigen) 18. Dezember 2008 20:43:17
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 (Profil anzeigen) 18. Dezember 2008 20:58:24
Mutusen:The latter is correct.Thanks!
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".
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...
Amike,
Harri.
Matthieu (Profil anzeigen) 18. Dezember 2008 21:08:41
What I said would make more sense if the sentence was "He said he was coming".
robinast (Profil anzeigen) 18. Dezember 2008 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 (Profil anzeigen) 19. Dezember 2008 02:48:17
"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 (Profil anzeigen) 19. Dezember 2008 12:35:28
danielcg (Profil anzeigen) 19. Dezember 2008 16:16:00
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 (Profil anzeigen) 19. Dezember 2008 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 (Profil anzeigen) 21. Dezember 2008 08:11:57
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
Amike,
Harri.