*Drako*:"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars".

"Ni estas ĉiuj en la kloako, sed kelka da ni estas regardi la stelojn".

I think stratkanaleto is fine for "gutter" (that's what Reta Vortaro proposed when I looked up the French word).

For "some of us", I would say kelkaj el ni.

Estas regardi is not correct, though. The literal translation of "we are looking" is ni estas rigardantaj, but ni rigardas is enough.
English often uses continuous tenses ("be …ing"), but Esperanto generally avoids compound tenses if it is not necessary.

Speaking of archaic language, in "to thine own self be true", that isn't true as in the opposite of false. The meaning of the word in this context is more like "faithful". The quote is saying that you should be faithful to yourself. Therefore, I would not say "vera" in the Esperanto translation (because that would be suggesting that people be real rather than artificial!). I would say "fidela", which is a good translation for "faithful".

Thanks Mutusen.

Thanks Erinja, I see what you mean, and I like the word, 'fidela'.

My understanding of the grammar is really starting to come together now. Now I need to know when and where to use the affixes, and to build up my vocabulary.

I've discovered the table of correlatives. What a feast.

It's fun to play around with the affixes. It amuses me that several times I have read on the internet comments such as, 'Esperanto has no swear words'! Lol! Playing around with the affixes reveals a very sophisticated and inventive vocabulary of expletives indeed. Hehe.

I feel as if I have some idea of where the accusative should be defined, although I'm not confident, because if I already have it about right, I can't believe I would have learned it so quickly. Hmm. Let's see. I've been trying to give some more quotes the Esperanto treatment:

A personal one : "Follow your star to the end of the world".

Sekvas vian stelon al la fino de la mondo.

I think that the pronoun ought to conform to the accusative ending of the noun that follows it. Is this right? 'Fino' and, 'mondo' aren't defined as accusative because they follow prepositions. Yes?

A couple more Shakespeare quotes:

"There is more in heaven and earth (Horatio), than there is in your philosophy".

Tie estas pli en la ĉielo kaj la tero, ol tie estas en via filozofio.

I think this is one of those where there is no definition of the accusative, it's full of prepositions.

"The fault (, dear Brutus) lies not in stars, but in ourselves, if we are underlings".

La eraro estas ne en nia steloj, sed en nia memoj, se ni estas malsuperuloj.

Again, I'm thinking that there is nothing to be defined as accusative here.

I had to think of a word for 'underlings'. The reason I chose 'malsuperuloj', is because this would mean, 'under-people', which conveys the same idea.

The suffix '-ling', can be used to denote 'offspring of' (earthling, gosling, spiderling), but I decided against using 'malsuperido', which would mean 'offspring of that which is beneath', which I don't feel conveys the right idea. There's no need to be biological about it.

Thinking about this caused me to think of the word 'earthling'. I came up with two words for this:

Teruloj = earthlings (specifically human).
Teridoj = earthlings (all terrestrial beings).

What do you think?

The next one is quite melancholic, I believe it comes from the Old Testament, Ecclesiastes, or so I was told, although I have scoured the King James version of this book, and I cannot find anything nearly like this, but here it is:

"For the world which thou dost inhabit is itself the realm of darkness, and the very flesh which clothes thee is thy perdition".

Charming. Anyway:

Por la mondo kiu vi loĝas estas la regno mallumeco, kaj la identa karno kiu portas vin estas via damnado.

I say 'mallum-ec-o', because I refer to dark'-ness', I'm not seeking to just name the 'dark'. Korekte?

cont...

...

I use the word 'damnado', because I prefer it to 'pereo', and it gave me an excuse to try out a suffix.

I'm not too sure at all about the use of the word 'identa' for the word 'very', in, 'the very flesh which clothes thee', which is an uncommon and rather archaic use of the word 'very'. The sentence would still make sense if this word was omitted, but would not have the same emphasis, about the flesh being the stuff of the world that is referred to earlier...if you see what I mean. So, would 'identa' sit nicely in this context, or is there a better alternative?

I've attempted to translate your quotes below.

*Drako*:I've been trying to give some more quotes the Esperanto treatment:

A personal one : "Follow your star to the end of the world".

Sekvas vian stelon al la fino de la mondo.

Sekvu vian stelon al la ekstremaĵo de la mondo.

You are correct with your use of the accusative. I think 'follow' is a command in this sentence.

*Drako*:A couple more Shakespeare quotes:

"There is more in heaven and earth (Horatio), than there is in your philosophy".

Tie estas pli en la ĉielo kaj la tero, ol tie estas en via filozofio.

Estas pli en la ĉielo kaj la tero (Horatio), ol estas en via filozofio.

I was thinking that the 'there', in this sentence wasn't necessary for the meaning...

*Drako*:"The fault (, dear Brutus) lies not in stars, but in ourselves, if we are underlings".

La eraro estas ne en nia steloj, sed en nia memoj, se ni estas malsuperuloj.

La kulpo (, kara Brutus) ne restas en steloj, sed en ni mem, se ni estas malsuperuloj.

I think that 'fault', in this case meant 'blame', not 'error'

*Drako*:"For the world which thou dost inhabit is itself the realm of darkness, and the very flesh which clothes thee is thy perdition".

Charming. Anyway:

Por la mondo kiu vi loĝas estas la regno mallumeco, kaj la identa karno kiu portas vin estas via damnado.

Ĉar la mondo, kiu vi enloĝas, estas mem, la regno de mallumo, kaj la vera karno , kiu vestas vin, estas via eterna damno

I think 'for' in this sentence is working like 'because' (thinking of this sentence as a piece of a larger work...)

Sekvu vian stelon al la ekstremaĵo de la mondo.

You are correct with your use of the accusative. I think 'follow' is a command in this sentence.

Right you are! I'd not thought about it like that. I think that the term, 'command form', has me in mind of applying this only in case of outright demands and orders, but would you say that it is to be used wherever something is being instructed or told, rather than asked?

I should explain the meaning of the phrase: 'Follow your star', means to 'pursue your highest ideal'. When I say 'to the end of the world', what I mean is, that if you were to follow a star continually you would go round and round the earth, in this respect, the world never ends. This implies both the lamentable but necessary pursuit of enlightenment via the cycle of death and rebirth, so you might as well get on with it, while also suggesting that the mission is completely futile if you end up back where you started, as 'the world' is a globe, not a coil. There is however, another meaning, being that 'to the end of world', implies, 'in the face of the greatest adversity, as well as, 'until the end of time'.

Therefore the statement is very cynical and very idealistic at the same time. It depends what mood I'm in.

The word 'ekstremaĵo', implies an 'extremity', something that culminates to a point, such as 'the end of a pencil', or 'the end of the road', but yet given the double, if not triple meaning, it doesn't express what I need it to do. The word can't nullify a potentially cyclic concept.

It's an idea for text to encircle a nautical star tattoo. So there can be no mistakes and I need it to imply all that I need it to. Hmm. Challenging. I need an Esperanto word that can fulfil the same possibilities of interpretation as the English, 'the end'. Is Esperanto really as versatile as any natural language?

I think that 'fault', in this case meant 'blame', not 'error'

Indeed! 'Kulpo' is exactly what it needed. Thanks.

I think 'for' in this sentence is working like 'because' (thinking of this sentence as a piece of a larger work...)

Yep. It's definately working like the word, 'because'. Duh. I can be such a dolt sometimes. A new pair of eyes can be very helpful.

Thanks Oŝo.

Try not to be so literal in your translations. Think hard about the core meaning. Don't simply translate "there"; think about the meaning of the word. There is a difference between saying "There are dragons here" and saying "I was there". The first instance uses "There are" simply to indicate a presence or existence of something; the second is saying "there", as in, that place, a specific place.

Likewise, think of other Esperanto words with their core meanings, just as you think of the core meanings of English words.

The Esperanto word "tie" only means "that place" or "in that place", although it is usually translated as "there". In general, with correlatives, you will have better luck in translation if you think about them using their core meanings, rather than thinking of them as translations of English words. "Kie" is usually translated as "where", but if you think of it as meaning "in which place", you'll have fewer errors in using it.

An Esperanto-only dictionary is extremely helpful with this; it helps you cut through the confusion of the English translation, straight to the core meaning of the word. Lernu has a small Esperanto-only dictionary, and you can find a better one at www.reta-vortaro.de

Unfortunately your Esperanto level is not yet high enough for you to be able to use an Esperanto-only dictionary with ease, but I encourage you to try anyway. It might be that even one key Esperanto word in the definition catches your eye, that makes the true meaning clear.

On verbs:

Although your quote was not a command, but a suggestion, the command form is still used. It is also used in English in this case, although this is not clear, because English uses the same verb form for multiple purposes.

Let's say that you said "Sekvas vian stelon"

This means "Follows your star", in English. First - this is how we know that English also uses the imperative form here. Because if it weren't an imperative form, we would be saying "Follows your star" and not "Follow your star". The reader would understands that this is a statement, not a suggestion. Something does follow your star. The second thought the reader has, is who is the subject? This is true in English and in Esperanto. If you see "Follows your star", in English, the reader wants to know, "Who follows my star, who am I talking about?"

And if "follow" rather than "follows" were really the correct form, if we are speaking in present tense, we need a pronoun or a subject. "You follow your star". "I follow your star".

The Esperanto speaker has the same thought process on seeing 'Sekvas vian stelon'. Who is my subject?, the Esperanto speaker wants to know. Who is following your star? The second thing is that the speaker understands it as a statement of fact. Someone does follow my star; I just have to figure out who. But it isn't a statement of fact, it's a suggestion, so the -u form is correct.

So if you want to say "follow", but with no subject in English, then you know that this is a suggestion, and you need the imperative -u form in Esperanto (and also no subject).

A sidebar on verbs and subjects in Esperanto:
With most -as verbs (present tense), we have a subject. There are a few verbs used in Esperanto without a subject. These are impersonal verbs, that have no subject. So "Pluvas" means "It's raining". Rain doesn't really have a subject, it just rains, so this is an impersonal verb in Esperanto, as are weather verbs in general. English puts in a fake dummy subject "it" that doesn't really refer to anything. It's just a placeholder since there's no real subject, and it would be ungrammatical to say "Is raining".

When you have an English expression using 'it', and you are decide what "it" means. Does "it" refer back to a previous noun used? Then translate it as "ĝi". So if I say "Mi havas hundon. Ĝi estas bruna", it's clear that "ĝi" refers to the dog.

If I say "It's cold in here", what is "it"? "It" is nothing in this case. "It" is a placeholder because it's ungrammatical to say "Is cold in here" in English. This is a situation where an impersonal verb is used in Esperanto. We would say "Estas malvarme ĉi tie". So you need to be extra careful with "it", because English uses the word "it" far more often than we use "ĝi" in Esperanto. Your rule of thumb should always be "Can I name the exact noun that 'it' is referring to?" If you can't name the exact noun, or if "it" is referring to some amorphous idea, or to a whole sentence, or to a situation, rather than an actual noun, then you can't use "ĝi" and you'll need to think up another translation.

Thanks Erinje for such a detailed and informative response.

I’ll pinch these comments for my notes if that’s okay.

"There are dragons here" and saying "I was there".

'Here be dragons', indeed. 'Ave yer bin readin' ye Olde Worlde maps? Hehe.

There are dragons here = Estas (there are) drakoj tie (in that place).

I was there = Mi estis tie.

I think I might know what you mean.

The Esperanto word "tie" only means "that place" or "in that place", although it is usually translated as "there". In general, with correlatives, you will have better luck in translation if you think about them using their core meanings, rather than thinking of them as translations of English words. "Kie" is usually translated as "where", but if you think of it as meaning "in which place", you'll have fewer errors in using it.

Okay, I think I know what you mean here. 'Tie', is usually translated as 'there', but as it is to be thought of as 'in that place', it could just as well indicate, 'here', so therefore, context is key?

For the table of correlatives, I have for the indications of place: 'kie', 'tie', 'ie', 'cxie' and 'nenie', noted as: 'where', 'there', 'somewhere', 'everywhere', 'nowhere'. It would help to change these notes to 'in which place', 'in that place', 'in some place', 'in every place', 'in no place', and think about them all in that way? Is that what you're saying? In fact, when I look at all the correlatives in this way, it does change the way I think about some of them.

An Esperanto-only dictionary is extremely helpful with this; it helps you cut through the confusion of the English translation, straight to the core meaning of the word. Lernu has a small Esperanto-only dictionary, and you can find a better one at www.reta-vortaro.de

Okay. I've shyed away from this because I'm not sure what I'm doing with it, but if I just take the plunge I might make some enlightening discoveries. I'll try to start using it.

My learning style is very erractic and disorganised. I find it really hard to sit and go through a sequence of steps, 1, 2, 3, because my mind will wander off onto something else, and if I'm forced to comply with linear regularity of method, I'll get upset, frustrated and blow up. For example, if I use the 'Kurso de Esperanto', test, where it asks for me to identify the plurals and the accusative in a sentence, I find it impossible to make it without any stupid mistakes, and yet it seems I can translate phrases and define the accusative with no problems. It's because I'm free, and can hop from one thing to the next like a bee on a flower bed. That's how I learn best. I'm not sure what kind of study plan would suit me, plans and I do not get on well together! Lol!

That's why I like posting quotes and stuff here, so I can be corrected and learn from my mistakes.