Al la enhavo

Que who that which ... :)

de scavengist, 2007-januaro-22

Mesaĝoj: 11

Lingvo: English

scavengist (Montri la profilon) 2007-januaro-22 04:50:31

What is the Esperanto "that/which/who", or like, the spanish "que"?

"The boy who lived"
"The fruit that spoiled"

I got kiu and ke. It confuses me. Please help, dankon.

Cary (Montri la profilon) 2007-januaro-22 13:46:33

In both cases, I think you must use kiu, because that word replace something (here, boy and fruit) of the first part of the sentence in the second.

You will use ke to link two parts of a sentence that could form two distinct sentences of their own simply by removing the word that, example :
I know that you can do that -> I know. You can do that.

You cannot do the same with the 2 examples you gave :
The boy. He lived. aren't two valid sentences : the first one means nothing, and the second doesn't clearly relate to the boy.

carnifex (Montri la profilon) 2007-januaro-22 15:09:41

Indeed, in this case you should use "kiu". The explanation by Cary is spot on - if "who, which, that" replaces the subject of the clause, use "kiu", if it doesn't replace the subject, use "ke".

In your cases it would be:

"La knabo, kiu vivas"
"La frukto, kiu fuŝas"

Of course, in these simple cases you can do without "kiu" at all, just use the participles:

"La vivanta knabo"
"La fuŝanta frukto"

pastorant (Montri la profilon) 2007-januaro-22 17:55:48

Wouldn't you say:

La frukto, kiu putras

instead of

La frukto kiu fuŝas?

La frukto, kiu fuŝas sounds like "The fruit which messes things up" ridulo.gif

awake (Montri la profilon) 2007-januaro-22 18:37:26

Yes, I agree with pastorant. It seems to me that fuŝi should be a transitive verb. Therefore putras is better. You could also probably get away with fuŝiĝas, but putras would be more specific.

pastorant:Wouldn't you say:

La frukto, kiu putras

instead of

La frukto kiu fuŝas?

La frukto, kiu fuŝas sounds like "The fruit which messes things up" ridulo.gif

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2007-januaro-22 20:09:44

awake:Yes, I agree with pastorant. It seems to me that fuŝi should be a transitive verb. Therefore putras is better. You could also probably get away with fuŝiĝas, but putras would be more specific.
The lernu dictionary's Esperanto-only dictionary defines fuŝi as "to make something bad or to do something badly, because of lack of care (intentionally or by mistake)"

So...yeah someone would understand if you used "fuŝi" here but it wouldn't really be a correct use of "fuŝi". You'd have to word it as "Mi fuŝis la frukto-tenadon" or something.

pastorant (Montri la profilon) 2007-januaro-23 00:59:34

I always saw fuŝi as "to screw up". There's also the expletive "Fuŝ!"

You could also use farplenumuzaĉi , ĉu ne?

carnifex (Montri la profilon) 2007-januaro-23 14:19:53

He asked for "The fruit that spoiled", so I assumed "The fruit that spoiled the soup" lango.gif If he asked for "The fruit that was spoiled", indeed, you're all correct! senkulpa.gif Cheers! sal.gif

T0dd (Montri la profilon) 2007-januaro-25 00:33:31

Personally, it would take me a minute to guess what "La frukto kiu fuŝis" might mean.

To return to the original question, the English word "that", as well as the Spanish word "que" can serve as either subordinating conjunction or relative pronoun. Cary explained the difference very well. For those of us whose native language uses the same word for both (very different) jobs (and English, but not Spanish, also uses it as a demonstrative adjective and pronoun), it can take a while to get used to having to use different words. It means that (sub. conj.) we have to make a distinction that (rel. pron.) we're not used to making.

Islander (Montri la profilon) 2007-februaro-06 22:57:01

"La frukto kiu fuŝis" would be that "malpermesita frukto"...

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