Berichten: 44
Taal: English
TheMartianGeek (Profiel tonen) 22 oktober 2010 15:25:14
1) May I use certain nouns as adjectives by changing the ending? For example, if I want to say "a ham sandwich" in Esperanto, can I say "sandviĉo ŝinka", or must it be "sandviĉo de ŝinko"?
2) How do I say "not" in the context of "not so", as in "Surely not!"? Would "neniel" work? (And would "tiel" be equivalent to "so" in the same context, as in "Estos tiel." - "It will be so."?)
3) How would I express a passive infinitive in Esperanto? For instance, in the sentence "It is easy to be fooled", how would "to be fooled" translate? "Esti mistifikita"?
Thanks in advance (not sure how that would translate). I will use this thread for future questions, if I may.
Miland (Profiel tonen) 22 oktober 2010 15:46:47
TheMartianGeek:I .. want to become fluent in Esperanto eventually.A worthy ambition! Remember, though, that you need a little patience to learn any language, even Esperanto, which is designed to be relatively easy. So pace yourself.
Now, to your questions:
TheMartianGeek:1) May I use certain nouns as adjectives by changing the ending? For example, if I want to say "a ham sandwich" in Esperanto, can I can "sandviĉo ŝinka"Yes, but the adjective would usually go first (unless you're writing poetry or something).
TheMartianGeek: How do I say "not" in the context of "not so", as in "Surely not!"? Would "neniel" work?Yes. "Neniel!" means "No way!" A commonly used expression is Tute ne! ("Certainly not!") "Really?!" is Ĉu vere?! That may be close enough to "Surely not?!", where the expected answer is "Yes, really!" (Jes, vere!)
TheMartianGeek:would "tiel" be equivalent to "so" in the same context, as in "Estos tiel." - "It will be so."?)Yes.
TheMartianGeek:How would I express a passive infinitive in Esperanto? For instance, in the sentence "It is easy to be fooled", how would "to be fooled" translate? "Esti mistifikita"?What you have written means "to be fooled". You would need Estas facile mistifikiĝi. Note that "It" is not a well-defined subject, and that is why we use facile, not facila. The reason for iĝ is that it makes the verb intransitive.
TheMartianGeek:I will use this thread for future questions, if I may.Feel free. You will find that Esperantists are generally willing to help beginners with such questions.
Shanemk (Profiel tonen) 22 oktober 2010 20:55:45
Miland:I thought adjective-noun placement didn't matter, it was whatever the speaker was comfortable with?
TheMartianGeek:1) May I use certain nouns as adjectives by changing the ending? For example, if I want to say "a ham sandwich" in Esperanto, can I can "sandviĉo ŝinka"Yes, but the adjective would usually go first (unless you're writing poetry or something).
Miland (Profiel tonen) 22 oktober 2010 21:41:54
Shanemk:I thought adjective-noun placement didn't matter, it was whatever the speaker was comfortable with?In theory yes, but more commonly the adjective comes first.
Evildela (Profiel tonen) 22 oktober 2010 22:01:46
sudanglo (Profiel tonen) 22 oktober 2010 22:16:01
So there are three passive infinitives.
There's bound to be a good explanation on this site, or in the course book you are using. But as a quick demonstration of these endings, I give you domo vendota, ŝlosilo perdita, and lingvo parolata.
The other thing to note is that whilst the passive is very common in English it is often rendered in the active in Esperanto.
So 'I am not so easily fooled' might be 'oni ne trompas min tiel facile'.
On your first point, Esperanto more or less allows any combination of roots if the meaning is clear, and in this respect the markers for parts of speech 'o' 'a' 'e' enjoy the same freedom.
Specifically with regard to ham sandwich, I would probably say ŝinko-sandviĉo rather than ŝinka sandviĉo, which suggests that the sandwich has a hammy quality. But I doubt that any Esperantist would find ŝinka sandviĉo strange.
RiotNrrd (Profiel tonen) 22 oktober 2010 22:57:41
Miland:The reason for iĝ is that it makes the verb intransitive.Actually, this is not strictly true. The "iĝ" in essence makes up the "being" part of the phrase "being fooled". It literally means "to become" whatever is signified by the root.
It is true that it does make the verb intransitive, but that is just a side-effect; it is not the primary reason for its use. The primary reason for it's use is to indicate that the subject becomes what it signified by the root (which, since it's all about the subject, means that it cannot take a direct object).
erinja (Profiel tonen) 23 oktober 2010 01:29:06
Evildela:Don't let commonly used means fool you, Esperanto is designed to be mixed up - so by all reasons - mix it!Don't let "by all means mix it up" fool you.
It's true that we can mix up a lot of things in Esperanto and people do it all the time to make a sentence sound nicer or more poetic, or to make something clearer, or to add emphasis.
But the reason that we can do this is that Esperanto has grammatical markers that make the meaning clear even when the word order is a bit scrambled. A beginner is likely to make mistakes in these grammatical markers. And in spite of the mixed-up word orders that are frequently found in fluent Esperanto, almost always there is a "standard" neutral word order.
I normally recommend that beginners stick to the standard first (it is similar to English word order), because they will still be understood even if they mess up the grammar.
Also you'll find that we call it the "default" word order for a reason. In most Esperanto texts you read, unless it's poetry, you won't find a ton of variation in word order, except for the addition of emphasis.
I'm all for beginners experimenting with the language and enjoying it, but I think it's doing beginners a disservice to say "go ahead, put the words in whatever order pleases you!"
I correct texts written by beginners on this site and sometimes even if they did use the standard order, I have a hard time understanding what they were trying to say. An experimental word order would make it impossible - and I am a person who has by now corrected hundreds of beginner lessons, so I am very familiar with common mistakes.
sudanglo (Profiel tonen) 23 oktober 2010 09:09:51
On page 21, there's a table showing the results for his corpus analysis of subject/ verb/object order in your basic sentence.
The figures are SVO 90%, OVS 7%. The other orders taken together amount to only 3%.
So Esperanto is 97% verb central.
'La prezidanto donacis la monon' or
'La monon donacis la prezidanto de nia klubo'
On page 25 he gives Adjective/Noun 96.4%, Noun/Adjective 3.6%
Miland (Profiel tonen) 23 oktober 2010 11:17:55
RiotNrrd:That is the reason that I myself had for using it here. This second use is found in section 10.4 of Teach Yourself Esperanto (the first being a change of state).Miland:The reason for iĝ is that it makes the verb intransitive.It is true that it does make the verb intransitive, but..it is not the primary reason for its use..
As PMEG (section Agaj radikoj, first para after the first box) puts it: Ankaŭ oni povas fari IĜ-verbon el objekta verbo.