I don't want to come across as stubborn or opinionated, and at the same time, I don't wish to give up my beliefs and culture. This matter of whether you call the ground that your house sits on a garden, a yard, a lawn, or even something else depends a lot on where you grew up. In the U.K., parts of Europe, and possibly other places in the world, you see scenes of small houses with small, cultivated plots of land, with many flower beds. I can understand why they are called gardens. You also see huge estates with many flower beds and large grassy areas. These must be tended by professional gardeners and I can also understand why they would be called gardens. They are show places rather than places to live in.

Move westward a thousand miles or so and you will find the southeastern U.S. We have lots of room, many forested areas and lots of rain. Our homes, especially in rural areas, often sit on large plots of land. The size of the yard depends primarily on how much time the individual homeowner wants to spend in maintaining it. In addition to the yard itself and the shrubbery and flower beds it may contain, many homeowners have vegetable gardens. This takes even more upkeep time. There are a lot of deer and other small animals that can do a lot of damage to a vegetable or flower garden.

I like the location that I live in and the "yard" that my house sits on. I wouldn't trade it for something ten times more valuable. But I have to admit that it takes a lot of maintenance. Using both a riding lawnmower for the open spaces and a push lawnmower for the rest, it takes me more than five hours to mow my yard. Many people would not want that at all. In addition, on three sides of my property there is thick brush and many trees dot the landscape. I simply keep the growth under control. Call it what you will but I just have a problem with viewing it as a "garden".

Traveling around Europe I found it very common for people to refer to the cultivated and cared for area immediately around their home as a garden. Some were small like the walled garden referred to as a "close" in England, others large like the Tuileries Garden in Paris which is basically the yard for the Place de la Concord. Either way, both are referred to as gardens. In early US history we find lots of people with limited means (ie. not nobility) with the opportunity to own lots of land. When these people cultivated their gardens it was with fruits and vegetables to sustain them rather than the large sprawling decorative gardens. The term is the same for both in English, and it is gxardeno in Esperanto. Use gazono or some other term if you prefer, but the cultivated area around your home is most properly called gxardeno regardless of size.

This has nothing to do with trampling over someone's culture, and everything to do with the fact that words that are ostensible translations of one another are not actually exact equivalents.

What if we forget about the English word "garden", and we define the Esperanto word "ĝardeno" as "a landscaped piece of property" or "a piece of property adjoining a house". Would you consider this an acceptable definition for what surrounds your house? And if so, if this is the definition of a "ĝardeno", would you use this word to describe what surrounds your house?

The Wikipeda definition for ĝardeno even mentions the fact that the ĝardeno may be "tute gazonigita" (entirely 'lawn'-ed - only a lawn, without flowers or food plants)

I fully agree that sometimes living conditions are so different from country to country that the same word shouldn't be used to describe analogous items.

But I submit that this isn't one of those cases. A person living in an east coast US city might have a tiny piece of grass and plants adjoining their house. A person in the southwest has, perhaps, a big piece of land that is mainly sand and cactus, landscaped to look nice, and maybe with a small patch of grass, depending on their own inclination (and the rules of their neighborhood association).

You are suggesting that the same word should be used for the two-acre plot with trees, bushes, and grass, and for the city postage stamp, and also for the desert terrain - a "yard". So why is it so bad to take the word "ĝardeno" and use it both for the postage stamp, the two-acre plot, and the desert landscape?

You have to separate English words and Esperanto words in your head. Almost no word at all is an exact translation of another. Ĝardeno is not the exact same thing as yard. English makes some distinctions between words that Esperanto doesn't make, and vice versa. You have to be flexible enough when you are speaking a second language, that you make distinctions according to the language you are actually speaking.

Furthermore, as food for thought, I submit that the line between a garden and a yard may be finer than you might first think. If I have a front yard with a few flowers planted in a tiny flowerbed around a tree, is that now a garden, according to you, or is it just a yard with a little landscaping? And if I have, for example, a patio in my backyard, and on the patio I have some big terra cotta pots with flowers and herbs planted in them, is that a garden, or is it still just a plain old yard?

I find this site usefull. It allows you to make your own flashcards or use ones already created. It's called Quizlet
here's the esperanto section:
http://quizlet.com/subject/esperanto/

Hm, this thread reminds me of the first time I went to the States, and I went to a diner and ordered a white coffee. The waitress looked at me blankly and said, "White coffee? Hon, we got black coffee or coffee with cream." It's old-fashioned Australian; ever since the invasion of the espresso machines, people don't say it much anymore. (It's 'flat white' now).

In the part of Australia I come from, we call the thing you describe a back or front yard or garden. For the whole plot of land we might say 'lot' or 'property'. If you're worried that 'falĉi la ĝardeno' sounds odd, just use 'falĉi la gazono,' or 'falĉi la herb(ar)o.'

Interesting note about the German word 'hof'. In Korea it's a loanword but it means a tavern, not a yard. Perhaps it came from 'Bierhof' if there is such a thing..?

Different terminology is so tricky.

The first time I went to England, I didn't realize that an "X salad" sandwich means that it's an X sandwich, with lettuce and maybe a bit of tomato on it. In the US, "X salad" usually means that X is chopped into little bits and mixed with mayonnaise and spices. I am not a big fan of those sandwiches, I assumed Brits really loved mayonnaise all over everything, and I thought that was weird. Only a day or two before I left, I figured out what "salad" really meant in this context.

On a later trip to the UK, I really thought I had all of the terminology problems sussed out. I was wrong, when I ordered what ended up being the Most Disappointing Sandwich in the World from a cafe in Hull.

Cheese sandwich with onion chutney sounded interesting and delicious. It was grated cheese and chopped onion mixed with a bunch of mayonnaise. SO not what I was expecting!

To me, the garden/yard issue seems to sum up what's best and worst about Esperanto, and what's best and worst about English. English has 170,000 words and many of those words have nuances that make them unique. The fact that Esperanto has far, far fewer words makes it easier to learn, but you're going to lose a lot of subtleties in translation.

I think Erinja's right, in many cases it's a question of letting go of nationally derived cultural interpretations and adopting Esperanto meanings. This may make it difficult to translate culturally-specific phrases into Esperanto, but it also creates a strong and unique Esperanto culture with its own pattern of meanings and way of thinking.

Ŝiru_Ĉi_Tie:All of this just begs the question: if a yard is a 'herbaro' (collection of grass) or a 'ĝardeno' then just how would you say garden in the American sense, a small food or flower plot?

Wouldn't legomĝardeno and florĝardeno fit the case?

3rdblade:
Interesting note about the German word 'hof'. In Korea it's a loanword but it means a tavern, not a yard. Perhaps it came from 'Bierhof' if there is such a thing..?

I have never heard of a "Bierhof". From European viewpoint I think the term "Hof" comes from the rural area (Hof) and signifies technically the place between the living house (Wohnhaus), barn (Scheune, Heuboden) and utility storage shed (Geräteschuppen) like seen here and here. You could name the "Hof"("korto") the central meeting point of that property. Mostly this rural property is owned by a family or their descendants and the property is called "Hof FamilyXYZ" or another "Hof LandmarkXYZ". This is a "Bauern-Hof". My Marix e-o dictionary shows me the "bieno" translation for that kind of whole property.

If it comes to "Hof" innercity area, then mostly this is called "Hinterhof" or "Innenhof" (inner place which someone often can not see from outside) because you have to cross the "Toreinfahrt" (gateway). And of course there are different "Hinterhof" (Hinterhöfe, malantaŭaj kortoj). There are not very nice ones but that doesn't mean that they are not interesting. And of course there are very nice ones too. So for me "korto" doesn't signify something ugly just by definition. Just some European "urbokorto" examples:

Hinterhof 1 | Hinterhof 2 | Bartels Innenhof | Innenhof | Paris Hinterhof

I have never heard of a "Bierhof".

Thinking about this today I wondered if it was as simple as 'hof' when pronounced/written in Korean is 'hopu' (호프), which sounds like hops, which is in beer. Plus hof is vaguely a 'place', and is a German word, and Germany is famous for beer.