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"Where are you from?" translation?

de Darzaire, 2009-oktobro-29

Mesaĝoj: 11

Lingvo: English

Darzaire (Montri la profilon) 2009-oktobro-29 23:18:17

I was going through a list of basic phrases, and I saw this for "Where are you from?":

"De kiu lando vi estas?"

I though the -u ending on correlatives referred to a person, so "kiu" would mean "who". Is this right?

And let's assume I'm wrong (though I most likely am), and that sentence is right. Wouldn't a better way to say it be: "De kie vi estas?"

An in addition, shouldn't "lando" and "kie" both have -n on them, since they are objects of the sentence?

My knowledge of Esperanto is very basic, and I want to know why these are how they are.

Rogir (Montri la profilon) 2009-oktobro-29 23:46:05

No, yes, no.

The -u ending correlatives are primarily used to indicate a specific thing: kiu-which, tiu-that, cxiu-each, cxiuj-all and so on. Possibly derived from this is using these to indicate a person, as if persono is being omitted in tiu (persono). So the usage of kiu is completely correct and common in this case.

Yes, De kie vi estas? is used more commonly and completely correct.

No, they are not objects, they are complement to the preposition, and words do not need an -n after a preposition, except for the case of movement to, which is never the case for de.

Darzaire (Montri la profilon) 2009-oktobro-30 00:13:34

That answered everything perfectly, thanks!

LyzTyphone (Montri la profilon) 2009-oktobro-30 01:54:47

There are thousands of way to ask this quetion.
I have also used "De kie vi vena?"

Pharoah (Montri la profilon) 2009-oktobro-30 04:01:32

I've also seen "El kie vi venas?" several times. Once when I asked it, though, the other person didn't understand, and when I explained what I meant they said it was an "english question" or something to that effect.

ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2009-oktobro-30 07:40:31

El is more for where you just came from, and shows origin of a movement, or so I've been told/otherwise convinced myself. De is more for showing possession, or more importantly for this case, a broad sense of belonging. So "Mi estas de Auxstralio" shows I'm from Australia, e.g. I'm an aussie, born there etc. "Mi estas el Adelajdo" means I was previously in adelaide at some point before reaching my current destination. "Mi estas angla" means I am English in a broad sense - I might have never lived in England, but my dad was English and my mum was practically half English. "Mi estas Australiano" means I am a member of the community of Australia either as a expat, citizen or what not.

Of course, as a scots artist sung in his song, I dinnae gie a hoot (I don't care) what one you use, they all work on the abstract level of communication, and people rarely introduce themselves in technical writing as it tends to be informal anyway.

darkweasel (Montri la profilon) 2009-oktobro-30 21:55:26

KoLonJaNo: >ondawy: Iuj demandas /Kie vi estas?/, aliaj /El kie ...?/, denove aliaj preferas /De kie ...?/ ...
KoLonJaNo: >ondawy: Kaj certe ĉiuj certas, ke ilia uzo estas la ĝusta. *rideto*
KaroloDenison: >KoLonJaNo: kiaj stultuloj. Kiam nur mi estas la verda papo.
KoLonJaNo: >KaroloDenison: Jes, sed vi estas sekreta papo. *okulumo*

Translation:
KoLonJaNo: >ondawy: Some ask /Kie vi estas?/, others /El kie ...?/, even others prefer /De kie ...?/ ...
KoLonJaNo: >ondawy: And of course everyone's sure that their use is the correct one. rideto.gif
KaroloDenison: >KoLonJaNo: what idiots. Where only I'm the green pope.
KoLonJaNo: >KaroloDenison: Yeah, you're the secret pope. okulumo.gif

Actually you can use all these forms. El kie vi estas, de kie vi estas, de kiu lando vi estas, whatever, as long as it makes sense and you're understood.

RiotNrrd (Montri la profilon) 2009-oktobro-31 02:00:24

ceigered:"Mi estas el Adelajdo" means I was previously in adelaide at some point before reaching my current destination.
I laughed when I read that.

I would have written "Adelejdo".

I totally understand why we each write it differently, and I'm not saying your way is wrong. I just find it funny.

And it also illustrates the difficulty an English spelling reform would run into. WHOSE English would we choose to represent the "correct" simplified spelling? Different pronunciations yield different spellings.

(I lived in Adelaide when I was 6 years old, by the way.)

ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2009-oktobro-31 04:11:59

lango.gif Actually I reckon many aussies would prefer 'Adelejdo' as for us, 'aj' and 'ej' would still be different with a strong Aussie accent (as our long 'i' sound is /ɑe/ and out long 'a' sound is /æɪ/)

I just wrote it 'Adelajdo' to reflect the spelling better and coz it's how it's in the Lernu Vortaro.

Did you like the city as a 6 year old? lango.gif

(wiki link to Aussie phonology - note that our 'e's range from /e/ to /ɛ/ depending on our English influence)

As for whose English should we choose for a spelling reform, I say divide them up to some extent. Australian English can be Aussie, American English can be American, and English English can be..... erm... English? And then it makes reading texts from other ex-English speaking countries funner for everyone.
(Or we can make a general system using vowel lengths etc, e.g. ó/é/á/í etc. Then English will start to look like a celtic language after a while!)

RiotNrrd (Montri la profilon) 2009-oktobro-31 05:31:19

ceigered:Did you like the city as a 6 year old? lango.gif
We moved there from Los Angeles in May of 1968, and I mostly remember it being very chilly and rainy. We were only there a month or so and my brother came down with pneumonia because of the dampness. The doctors told us he wouldn't make it through the Adelaide winter and we should REALLY consider moving to the tropics. So we moved to Townsville, in Queensland. And my brother did get better.

We moved back to Los Angeles the next year.

I really liked the time I spent in your country, although I saw it (and so remember it) from the viewpoint of a little kid. And a little-kid-year is a loooong time.

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