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Kelka or cxi

by Ruth, February 7, 2009

Messages: 8

Language: English

Ruth (User's profile) February 7, 2009, 5:27:51 PM

I am having difficulty in choosing correctly between these two words as both mean "some".

Thank you for your help.

jchthys (User's profile) February 7, 2009, 6:17:24 PM

I think you meant iu and iuj, not ĉi (which denotes proximity: ĉi tie = "here").

Iu means more like "a certain" or "somebody or other", but kelka emphasizes number. So if you want to use "some" as a kind of number, use kelka, as in "There were some bowls on the table, but not enough" (Estis kelkaj bovloj sur la tablo, sed ne sufiĉaj). If you are not using the word as a number replacement but just as an indefinite particle, use iu: "I would like something" (Mi volus havi ion).

Since the correlative suffix -om indicates number, you can use iom for number as well: iom da akvo = "some water". You cannot use iom as an adjective, however.

Miland (User's profile) February 7, 2009, 6:34:06 PM

Ruth:
Hello Ruth, and welcome to the English-speaking forum.

What is the sentence or idea that you are trying to translate?

Ruth (User's profile) February 7, 2009, 8:53:51 PM

Thank you Miland and jchthys for your replies. I did indeed mean "iu" and not "cxi". I think I may now understand the difference.

Iu homoj staris sur la strato.
Some people (not animals, for instance) stood on the street.

Kelkaj homoj staris sur la strato would mean some (a known or unknown quantity) stood on the street.

Ruth (User's profile) February 7, 2009, 9:37:08 PM

Thank you Miland and jchthys for your replies. I did indeed mean "iu" and not "cxi". I think I may now understand the difference.

Iu homoj staris sur la strato.
Some people (not animals, for instance) stood on the street.

Kelkaj homoj staris sur la strato would mean some (a known or unknown quantity) stood on the street.

jchthys (User's profile) February 7, 2009, 9:53:58 PM

Yes—that's a better example than I thought of! Only it should be iuj homoj—the correlative iu has a plural form.

erinja (User's profile) February 8, 2009, 3:40:04 PM

I don't think that using iuj versus kelkaj here is what differentiates between humans and animals. Obviously we are talking about humans either way, but what I'm saying is, in my opinion, using iuj versus kelkaj doesn't give any emphasis here, humans versus animals, or some humans versus a lot of humans.

I would translate 'iuj' as some, in the sense of some specific things.

For example, both "iuj libroj" and "kelkaj libroj" mean "some books". But I would translate "iuj libroj" as "some [specific] books", while "kelkaj libroj" is "some books, any books"

If I say "iuj libroj", personally, I am talking about specific books, and perhaps I am about to tell you what they are, and tell you something about them. If I say "kelkaj libroj", it would mean that there are books in some small quantity; it doesn't really matter which books they are.

Moving on to humans, similarly, if I said "iuj homoj", I am probably talking about specific people, and I will probably go on to tell you who they are, or something about them. If I said "kelkaj homoj", I am interested only in how many people there are, not in their identities.

jchthys (User's profile) February 9, 2009, 1:35:58 AM

Yes, that's exactly what I meant, but maybe I didn't communicate it effectively. I think Ruth understood me right, though.

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