Mesaĝoj: 10
Lingvo: English
Julius (Montri la profilon) 2011-marto-23 06:14:52
ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2011-marto-23 07:15:58
*donaĵo is interchangeable with donaco, for certain simplicity reasons I prefer "donaĵo" (give-thing, similar to English's "give"+t = "gift")
That is literally "(a) Native language is the most beautiful gift which I've received from my mother". The "kiun/which" is important there otherwise I can't make it make good sense without ruining the word order and phrasing, which for reference and style's sake I think you'd rather kept intact.
(Sed, vere mi kredas, ke la plej bela donaĵo el mia patrino al mi, estas mia vivo, mia ĉambro en la domo, kaj la daŭra donado de naskotagaj donaĵoj al mi
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But, I truly feel that the most beautiful gift from my mother to me is my life, room and continuing to give me presents on my birthday
) Kirilo81 (Montri la profilon) 2011-marto-23 09:18:10
ceigered:el mia patrinoWhy not "de mia patrino" ("el" is just local)?
sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2011-marto-23 11:03:54
'My native language' on other hand would mean the one you learnt as a child and is (probably) the language of your country.
In English native languages are those spoken by natives.
The Esperanto term 'denaska lingvo' is very precise and means a language learnt from childhood.
Even so, used just on its own it would induce some uncertainty and a qualifier is needed. So, 'Mia denaska lingvo estas la plej bela donaco, kiun mi ricevis de mia patrino'
'Donaĵo', not commonly used in the sense of 'gift', could refer to any donation, or something given.
The use of 'el' is not appropriate here. It conjures up an image of something physically coming out of your mother.
How's your reading going Ceiger? Have you tried accessing some of the texts at Tekstaro? If they have got Kredu min Sinjorino there you could well start with that. It's a fun read, and paints an interesting picture of times gone by.
ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2011-marto-23 12:32:01
sudanglo:Donaĵo', not commonly used in the sense of 'gift', could refer to any donation, or something given.Doesn't "donaco" also? (donaci = to donate or give)? I am aware of "donaco = gift/present" as prescribed in the dictionary here, but I still like "donaĵo". Simpler, IMHO. But for our purposes here, I'd go with your recommendation.
I apologise about "de". I'm sort of doing Japanese's equivalent to "de" in class at the moment, and whenever I see "de" I automatically conjure an image between "-a" and possession, where as "el" I see as a place of origin.
erinja (Montri la profilon) 2011-marto-23 13:55:55
To give (as a gift) and to give (simply to pass something to someone else) tend to be conflated in English, so in English it gets confusing, and we add extra words to make our meaning clear. "He gave me a book" could mean that he handed it to me to look at and give back immediately, or that he is lending it to me and I should give it back when I'm finished with it, or that he gave it to me as a gift for me to keep.
Therefore an alternate translation for "doni" in some contexts might be "to hand" (Mary handed me a book), because "to hand" means "to give", but definitely *without* the connotation that it's a gift, or that you're giving it for good. If I hand you a book, you may look at it and hand it back to me, or else I might hand it to you and say "keep it, happy birthday!", thus making it a gift.
donaci means to give a gift, hence the alternate translation of donate. You could also say "to gift" if you want a translation into the new-fangled English that likes to verb nouns and to noun verbs
Mi donas al vi donacon = I hand you a gift. [it might not be for you, it might be a gift for you to pass along to the intended recipient]
Mi donacas al vi libron = I give you a book as gift.
Mi donas al vi libron = I hand you a book.
Dankon por via malavara donaco! = Thank you for your generous gift!
ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2011-marto-23 14:16:17
Seriously though, I sometimes wish Zamenhoff didn't have two words that look so similar, meaning something similar, but aren't differentiated by any native suffixes, so that way it wouldn't look like one is a useless neologism erinja (Montri la profilon) 2011-marto-23 14:38:35
I place the blame on English, which doesn't easily distinguish between giving and "gifting". This is probably why "gift" has been used as a verb in recent years, because people are tired of adding explanations to distinguish between giving someone something and "gifting" someone something.
ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2011-marto-23 14:48:19
erinja:The ideas are related so I think it's not an entirely bad idea that they are a little similar-looking.Well, yeah, it is helpful that they're similar looking, but the non-suffix -aci (because it looks like it should be one but isn't) is misleading
I place the blame on English, which doesn't easily distinguish between giving and "gifting". This is probably why "gift" has been used as a verb in recent years, because people are tired of adding explanations to distinguish between giving someone something and "gifting" someone something.
.I personally like "give/gift", but I find the distinctions made by [url=http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/νέμω#Ancient_Greek]νέμω[/url] in ancient Greek and all those germanic "nemen/nehmen/nim" etc words interesting since they cover "give" and "take" respectively.
It seems humans have a very diverse and complex yet fuzzy idea of how giving and taking works
darkweasel (Montri la profilon) 2011-marto-23 16:16:39
Maybe you should note which languages you have already received translations for (I sent you a German-language translation then) so that nobody makes a double effort. Anyway you are more likely to get people from different linguistic backgrounds if you post on the "About other languages" forum on the Esperanto board. (edit: I've just seen that you already did that, sorry.)