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"About to"

ya Roberto12, 1 Aprili 2010

Ujumbe: 25

Lugha: English

Roberto12 (Wasifu wa mtumiaji) 1 Aprili 2010 9:13:03 asubuhi

How do you express the idea of "about to" in Esperanto? The grammars I've seen say to use the future participles, but I thought they contained a general futuristic sense, not an imminent one. For example, I thought la mortonta viro meant "the man who will die", not "the man who's about to die".

What I hope to find is an opposite adverb to ĵus. Does one exist?

ceigered (Wasifu wa mtumiaji) 1 Aprili 2010 9:33:22 asubuhi

About to is idiomatic, so there's quite a few ways to translate it:

- almost/nearly (preskaŭ) (Mi preskaŭ mortis! (I was about to die!)
- soon (baldaŭ, post nelonge) (Se la heroo ne venis, la homo baldaŭ mortus (If the hero didn't come, the man would soon (have) died))
- (Mi baldaŭ venos - I will soon go)

Or so I think. My head's currently in the wonderful world of Bahasa Indonesia land so I'm thinking a bit outside of normal European grammar and I may not have given the correct indication of tense there in the second example (but "baldaŭ mortus" seems to make sense considering "venis" is in the past).

If you're feeling really creative, wanting to confuse people or just lazy, there's always "malĵus" rido.gif

darkweasel (Wasifu wa mtumiaji) 1 Aprili 2010 9:42:06 asubuhi

ceigered:(but "baldaŭ mortus" seems to make sense considering "venis" is in the past).
No, you don't use the US-form in such cases, unlike in English. Use estis mortonta instead. The US-form is only for conditions.

tommjames (Wasifu wa mtumiaji) 1 Aprili 2010 9:56:38 asubuhi

Roberto12:The grammars I've seen say to use the future participles, but I thought they contained a general futuristic sense, not an imminent one.
They can contain either. If context is not sufficient to know which is meant then you can always add time-sense words like baldaŭ, tuj or whatever suits. Although as ceigered points out there are other ways to indicate the about-to-happen future, so if that's the sense your aiming for I wouldn't limit it solely to the participles in all cases.

ceigered:(Mi baldaŭ venos - I will soon go)
That would be "iros", not "venos" okulumo.gif

Roberto12 (Wasifu wa mtumiaji) 1 Aprili 2010 11:00:13 asubuhi

Until a wise old man supplies the ideal adverb, I think I'll use tre baldaŭ, i.e.

Mi tre baldaŭ iros = I'm about to go.
Mi estis tre baldaŭ ironta = I was about to go.

ceigered (Wasifu wa mtumiaji) 1 Aprili 2010 12:13:21 alasiri

darkweasel:
ceigered:(but "baldaŭ mortus" seems to make sense considering "venis" is in the past).
No, you don't use the US-form in such cases, unlike in English. Use estis mortonta instead. The US-form is only for conditions.
But there was a condition - "Se la heroo ne venis, la homo baldaŭ mortus" (reread my post to see where the example was).

And cheers Tommjames, I can somehow not confuse venir and aller in French, yet confuse veni and iri in Esperanto *head-desk*

darkweasel (Wasifu wa mtumiaji) 1 Aprili 2010 12:38:06 alasiri

ceigered:
darkweasel:
ceigered:(but "baldaŭ mortus" seems to make sense considering "venis" is in the past).
No, you don't use the US-form in such cases, unlike in English. Use estis mortonta instead. The US-form is only for conditions.
But there was a condition - "Se la heroo ne venis, la homo baldaŭ mortus" (reread my post to see where the example was).
Yes, but in such conditional sentences you need to use the US-form in both parts of the sentence. Se la heroo ne venintus, la homo baldaŭ mortintus (try mortontintus if you DON'T want to be understood ridego.gif).

ceigered (Wasifu wa mtumiaji) 1 Aprili 2010 1:02:24 alasiri

Haha I won't be trying mortontintus any day soon - however, I think we had a thread on this before and we had a similar disagreement, I'm sure of it.

The logic I think of my argument was:

IF (state), then RESULT (-us)

however double -us is still used (se ...-us, .....-us) in the PMEG, without much discussion of the option I use (For PMEG goodness).

Because "se" lists the condition, while the conditional verb's meaning hinges on what ever is in the condition. se + us in the same part of the phrase seems awfully redundant, like saying "Mi aliras al hejmon" (when one could just say "Mi iras al hejmo").

darkweasel (Wasifu wa mtumiaji) 1 Aprili 2010 1:14:06 alasiri

ceigered:
The logic I think of my argument was:

IF (state), then RESULT (-us)
That's what drives German-speaking English learners crazy about the English if-sentences. In Esperanto you use the US-form for the condition and for the result.

novatago (Wasifu wa mtumiaji) 1 Aprili 2010 2:22:08 alasiri

I also have thought about this topic for a while.

What do you think about these ones:

"the man who's about to die" = "la viro, kiu ĉe-ekas morti".

"I'm about to eat" = "Mi ĉe-ekas manĝi"

I have killed two neurons at least, to bring this. I hope you like it.

Ĝis, Novatago

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