I've noticed that if you go to the dictionary over on the side of the screen, it can't translate "would."

The dictionary defines it as a "pt. and pp. of will"

Not knowing dictionary abbreviations, I assume pp is preposition, but this still doesn't help me that much.

If I say "would you go clean the kitchen?" or "would you come over?"
Would (hehe, there it is again) that be the -u of will?
Even there, I go to the dictionary on the side of the screen and translate will, and it only has volo (desire, wish), and testamento (last will and testament)

Now, I do know that if you say "I will read" it's "Mi legos"
So would (and again!) "I would read, but I have to eat" be something like "Mi legu, sed mi bezonas mangxas"

To me, that doesn't make much sense, because I thought -u was like, a directive thing. Like, if I told you to stop, I would (and again!) say "haltu."

So, now noticing how many times I say would, and how many times it appears in regular conversation, how would one say that?

"Would" doesn't translate in a single word because we use it to make other verb forms in English. I just added a dictionary definition to indicate that "would" is normally translated with the -us ending in Esperanto.

Mathieŭ:... how would one say that?

You would translate the meaning. For example: "Would you clean the kitchen?" Bonvolu purigi la kuirejon. "I would read, but I have to eat". Mi volas legi, sed mi devas manĝi. There's often a number of ways of putting the same thing.

ahhh okay that makes everything so much easier!

thank you!

Hi Mathieux.

Martin Luther, who translated the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into German, used to say that he who speaks German should not use a Hebrew style; rather, once he has understood the meaning of a text, he should ask himself: "What do Germans say when they want to express this?", and then express that idea in the best German he can.

I agree with Martin Luther about some things and disagree about others; this one is definitely in the first group.

When my wife asks me if I would go and clean the kitchen, she certainly is not in the least interested about my inner desire to clean the kitchen or lack of it. She is politely asking me to go and clean the kitchen. So a good translation would be: "Bonvolu iri kaj purigi la kuirejon".

If you prefer to keep the question form, you may say:

"Ĉu vi bonvolus iri kaj purigi la kuirejon?"

Where did the word "would" hide in the Esperanto text? I don't have the slightest idea and I don't regret not having it. The polite request has been translated, and that's all.

Now let's go to another "would": "I would read, but I have to eat." The subject likes and desires and prefers to read, yet he must eat instead (I wonder why he doesn't read while he eats.)

This can be said in Esperanto this way:

"Mi ŝatus legi, sed mi devas manĝi."

You see, the word "would" in English is not like the word "apple". An apple is a concrete thing and so you fill find translations in almost any language (maybe the esquimos don't have a word for apple in their original language, since apple trees can't grow in the Arctic.)

"Would", instead, has little meaning in itself. It is always parte of a verbal phrase and it is the whole phrase which has the translatable meaning.

In a nutshell: 1) understand the whole phrase in the source language, 2) express the idea as well as you can in the object language, and 3) don't sweat about individual words.

Regards,

Daniel

Mathieux:I've noticed that if you go to the dictionary over on the side of the screen, it can't translate "would."