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I want...

de byronarnold, 2 avril 2007

Messages : 5

Langue: English

byronarnold (Voir le profil) 2 avril 2007 21:40:05

How would you translate "I want..." into Esperanto? Such as "I want a pony" or "I want some food".

In the Lernu! dictionary, I saw three words for want: deziro, voli, bezono. So which would I use? I suspect "Mi volas..." would be what I want, but I'm not sure...

Kwekubo (Voir le profil) 2 avril 2007 22:19:14

"Bezoni" means need, e.g. "Homoj bezonas manĝaĵon por vivi", people need food to live. Voli would probably be better in this case; the difference is that "voli" often implies that you're going to actually act to do something, rather than just wanting it to hopefully be so. (Quoting from Reta Vortaro: "Kontraste al deziri, voli ofte implicas intencon fari ion por realigi la deziratan.")

awake (Voir le profil) 3 avril 2007 03:39:58

As others have stated, bezoni = to need and both voli and deziri translate as "to want" or "to desire"

Nowadays, the latter two seem to be used interchangeably, but my impression (and it's only an impression) is that in their original usage voli was used mostly with verbs "mi volas kanti = I want to sing" and that deziri was used mostly with nouns "mi deziras tortaĵon = I want a piece of pie"

byronarnold:How would you translate "I want..." into Esperanto? Such as "I want a pony" or "I want some food".

In the Lernu! dictionary, I saw three words for want: deziro, voli, bezono. So which would I use? I suspect "Mi volas..." would be what I want, but I'm not sure...

erinja (Voir le profil) 4 avril 2007 12:50:47

I personally maintain the mental distinction between deziri (wanting a noun) versus voli (wanting a verb). But often I slip up in speech and use "voli" for both! I would definitely never say "mi deziras iri" or something like that, though.

Also, a friendly reminder - since this is the English forum, you can post in any language, but it should be accompanied by an English translation. We have a lot of beginners here who can't understand Esperanto-only text yet.

byronarnold (Voir le profil) 4 avril 2007 15:56:08

erinja:Also, a friendly reminder - since this is the English forum, you can post in any language, but it should be accompanied by an English translation. We have a lot of beginners here who can't understand Esperanto-only text yet.
I would be one of those beginners. I know very, very , very basic Esperanto...

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