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how are you using "vi" in english ...

de jeckle, 2009-majo-13

Mesaĝoj: 35

Lingvo: English

jeckle (Montri la profilon) 2009-majo-13 07:05:25

Hi,
in the german thread we translate "La Vorto De Tago". We had a sentence which wasn't easy/unpossible to translate correctly:

Ne timu sketi sur la glacio, mi helpos vin ne fali.

I try to translate this to english:
Don't be afraid to skate on ice, I will help you not to fall.
Hopefully this is translated correctly in this way.

But I remarked that "vi" might be one person or these could be several. In german we have words to differ between these two situations.
There are "du" for "you", what means one person. And "ihr" for your other "you", what means several persons.
Zamenhoff took these pronouns from the english grammar, so I thought here is the right place to place my question:
How would you build this sentence in english if you want to be sure to promise your help to only one person (perhaps this person is part of a crowd)? And how would you build the sentence if you promises your help to the whole crowd.
Best Regards jeckle

Miland (Montri la profilon) 2009-majo-13 09:21:37

jeckle:How would you build this sentence in english if you want to be sure to promise your help to only one person (perhaps this person is part of a crowd)?
You might look at him, or say his name.

jeckle: how would you build the sentence if you promises your help to the whole crowd.
You might say, for example Neniu el vi timu glatkuri, ĉar ni helpos vin ne fali. (Presumably you would have more than one helper available).

jeckle (Montri la profilon) 2009-majo-13 10:47:30

Miland, thank you for your quick response.
Miland:
jeckle:How would you build this sentence in english if you want to be sure to promise your help to only one person (perhaps this person is part of a crowd)?
You might look at him, or say his name.
So you run in trouble, if you don't know his name or if it's a written phrase, you can't peer at him.

Miland:
jeckle: how would you build the sentence if you promises your help to the whole crowd.
You might say, for example Neniu el vi timu glatkuri, ĉar ni helpos vin ne fali. (Presumably you would have more than one helper available).
That's a good point. So does the phrase "Ne timu sketi sur la glacio, mi helpos vin ne fali.", definitely shows the situation of one person I promise help or is the number of these persons undefined?

ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2009-majo-13 12:11:53

I think that 'vi' is generally assumed to be aimed at the minimum amount of people - e.g. just a single person, like "du", and that generally people know from the context whether you are offering help to one person or a whole group of them.
When we want to refer to multiple people in English when it might be ambiguous, we generally say 'you guys' or 'you chaps' (or any combination of 'you' with a friendly known in the plural) or even 'youse' (you + plural) or 'you all/y'all'. I assumed that the same can be recreated in Esperanto (except 'youse', as 'vij' would sound barely different to 'vi')

Personally I think in this example it is a 'du' sentence, as it sounds like the sentence a man would say to his unconfident partner as he took her ice-skating for the first time ridulo.gif

What would be nice though to have in Esperanto is a universal plural marker that could be used for all the pronouns (and maybe even nouns!) however this probably wouldn't have occured to Zamenhoff as when he made the language I doubt he had experienced the crazy world of east-asian pronouns (or pseudo-quasi-pronouns if we narrow that down to Japanese rido.gif)

Sorry I kind of waffled on there ridulo.gif But still I can't help myself ridulo.gif

Miland (Montri la profilon) 2009-majo-13 14:13:46

*repeat*

Miland (Montri la profilon) 2009-majo-13 14:13:47

jeckle:..does the phrase "Ne timu sketi sur la glacio, mi helpos vin ne fali.", definitely shows the situation of one person I promise help or is the number of these persons undefined?
That phrase means 'Do not be afraid to skate on the ice, I will help you not to fall', meaning that you yourself will come to the rescue. (How you will manage it if there are 100 skaters I don't know, maybe you will say quietly 'This looks like a job for Superman' and enter a phone booth..)

stefanspaul (Montri la profilon) 2009-majo-13 14:17:43

All I can say now is

Thank yous for your help sal.gif!!

jeckle (Montri la profilon) 2009-majo-13 14:38:44

stefanspaul:All I can say now is

Thank yous for your help sal.gif!!
Me too ...
I will try to use the esperanto "vi" like you do it with your "you". A specific addition at situations were it has to be clarified: name, boy, madam, ...
So again,
Thank YOU ALL

BeiDirSein (Montri la profilon) 2009-majo-13 16:48:53

But..
As in English there is the rarely used word "thou", there is in Esperanto the word "ci".

I know thou is not used anymore, but I'm not sure about the Esperanto ci.
I learnt that ci can be used in your family - so to special people. So if a man went ice-skating with his wife he could say
"mi helpos cin ne fali.", couldn't he?

ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2009-majo-13 16:54:41

I personally have never heard 'ci' used in a conversation, but that might just be me. I don't really know how it would be used either malgajo.gif

I think ci was an unofficial addition (like -icx-) to the language, I might be wrong.

Maybe wait until someone wiser than me answers? rideto.gif

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