RiotNrrd:

Paamayim:He saw me speaking to John
Li vidis mi parolas al John
or
Li vidis min parolas al John?

I would say "Li vidis min parolantan al John."

I would translate your sentence as He saw "a speaking me" to john.

While that would probably be understood, it seems off to me.

I would have chosen

Li vidis min tiam, kiam mi parolis al John.

That's literally, He saw me when I was speaking with John.

Paamayim:
My major problem in Esperanto at the moment is when things are direct objects or not. I understand the concept in English, but if you use an object pronoun in English do you use an object pronoun in Esperanto?

He saw me speaking to John
Li vidis mi parolas al John
or
Li vidis min parolas al John?

No, not always. Esperanto and English sometimes have different rules about the use of object pronouns. For example, We use object pronouns in English after prepositions, but in Esperanto we use subject pronouns.

For example

I gave the puppy to him ( to him not to he)

Mi donis al li la hundidon ( al li not al lin)

However, when the pronoun is itself a direct object, it DOES take the -n ending.

Mi pafis ŝin = I shot her

here mi is the subject and ŝi is the object (the person shot) therefore ŝi gets the direct object ending.

awake:

RiotNrrd:I would say "Li vidis min parolantan al John."

I would translate your sentence as He saw "a speaking me" to john.

Yes, I think you are right. I hadn't thought of it that way.

awake:

I would have chosen

Li vidis min tiam, kiam mi parolis al John.

That's literally, He saw me when I was speaking with John.

That seems more correct to me as well.

Paamayim:He saw me speaking to John

Li vidis min paroli al Johano.

waxle:

He saw me speaking to John

Or, you could use reported speech.

Li diris, ke mi parolis al John. (assuming you are not still speaking with John. The "reported" verb takes the tense it is supposed to normally; thus it could be "mi parolas al John" if the speech is still going on at the time this sentence is said.)

In Esperanto's reported speech rules, that sentence translates as "He said that he had seen me speak to John". You'd have to use "...ke mi parolas al John" (instead of "parolis") to preserve the tense of the original sentence.

You could also say "Li vidis ke mi parolas al John"

I would personally go with mnlg's suggestion, "Li vidis min paroli al John".

Interestingly, I think that "Li vidis min parolantan al John" is not wrong. It is unclear, and therefore should be avoided on those grounds, but I think it isn't grammatically wrong. I recently read "Lingvo kaj Vivo" by Waringhien (a classic collection of essays about the development of Esperanto, the evolution of Esperanto, and people's reactions to Esperanto), and if I remember correctly, I believe he reports that Zamenhof used constructions like that. I can check into it when I get home today.

The language has evolved somewhat since Zamenhof, and even within Zamenhof's own lifetime, his writing style changed; some of the constructions that was in the habit of using are no longer recommended (some of these may strike a modern Esperanto speaker as being flat-out wrong).

erinja:Interestingly, I think that "Li vidis min parolantan al John" is not wrong.

"li vidis min parolantan"
= he saw the speaking me.

"li vidis min parolanta"
= he saw me [and I was] speaking.

Same as,

"li trovis la telefonon rompita"
= he found the phone [and it was] broken.

"li trovis la telefonon rompitan"
= he found the broken phone.

That's how I learned it anyway

mnlg:

erinja:Interestingly, I think that "Li vidis min parolantan al John" is not wrong.

"li vidis min parolantan"
= he saw the speaking me.

"li vidis min parolanta"
= he saw me [and I was] speaking.

Same as,

"li trovis la telefonon rompita"
= he found the phone [and it was] broken.

"li trovis la telefonon rompitan"
= he found the broken phone.

That's how I learned it anyway

Yes, I learned it the same way. Although one could argue that "the speaking me" still, at its base, conveys the same meaning as "me speaking".

I couldn't find the citation I was thinking of in "Lingvo kaj Vivo"; maybe I just imagined it. But I did find a citation for some very weird grammar that Zamenhof used, that is not advisable today: "Tre grava por la progreso de l' lingvo internacia estas diligenta uzado ĝin en korespondado"

I would never recommend such a use, but Zamenhof commonly used forms like that throughout his life.

In the PMEG I found the sentence "Li vidis bovon tirantan ĉaron"; it is listed as grammatically correct but not necessarily advisable. I think it has a similar grammatical form to the "John" sentence above.

erinja:I couldn't find the citation I was thinking of in "Lingvo kaj Vivo"; maybe I just imagined it. But I did find a citation for some very weird grammar that Zamenhof used, that is not advisable today: "Tre grava por la progreso de l' lingvo internacia estas diligenta uzado ĝin en korespondado"

I would never recommend such a use, but Zamenhof commonly used forms like that throughout his life.

That's fascinating. Zamenhof's form made instant sense to me. Why is this use deprecated? Is it because it makes a noun function as a verb?

erinja:Yes, I learned it the same way. Although one could argue that "the speaking me" still, at its base, conveys the same meaning as "me speaking".

I think it's a matter of what you expected to see. If you somehow planned to see me speaking, then it's "parolantan". If you saw me, and only later you found out that I was speaking, it's "parolanta". I agree though that in this particular example the difference is very subtle.

richardhall:

erinja: "Tre grava por la progreso de l' lingvo internacia estas diligenta uzado ĝin en korespondado"

That's fascinating. Zamenhof's form made instant sense to me. Why is this use deprecated? Is it because it makes a noun function as a verb?

I think so, but an adverb can take an object ("uzante ĝin") and no one really seems to complain about that. I think it's custom more than anything else - we don't use it because we simply don't, because the bulk of Esperanto literature doesn't use it, and it isn't a form that really made it through to modern grammar. We simply don't normally assign objects to nouns, even though it isn't wrong to do so.

For a use like this, normally we would use "de" rather than the -n ending; most people would say "uzado de ĝi".

But even though it's correct, I wouldn't say "uzado ĝin". It's correct but it sounds wrong to my ear and I prefer to word my sentences in another way.