Beiträge: 133
Sprache: English
razlem (Profil anzeigen) 6. September 2011 23:44:49
3rdblade (Profil anzeigen) 7. September 2011 00:54:35
Who cares about Ido?A little anecdote for you guys. Recently I was in a museum in Japan which had an exhibit on language diversity in the world, and included a huge shelf of dozens of translations of Le Petit Prince. Aha, I thought, and looked for the Esperanto one. It wasn't there, but there was an Ido one.
Allan38 (Profil anzeigen) 7. September 2011 02:08:01
We all deliberately chose to speak Esperanto.
Hmm, not entirely accurate.... some have taught their children Esperanto as a first language.
Esperanto may have a higher ratio of non-native to native speakers than any other living language.
Kodegadulo (Profil anzeigen) 7. September 2011 02:46:55
3rdblade:Simple explanation: The Esperanto translation was so much more valuable than the Ido one (and all the others), that someone made off with it!Who cares about Ido?A little anecdote for you guys. Recently I was in a museum in Japan which had an exhibit on language diversity in the world, and included a huge shelf of dozens of translations of Le Petit Prince. Aha, I thought, and looked for the Esperanto one. It wasn't there, but there was an Ido one.
Kodegadulo (Profil anzeigen) 7. September 2011 04:42:36
"Esperanto: the second language ... for everyone."
Let them wonder, and ask you, before you explain why it is...
"Esperanto: la dua lingvo ... por ĉiuj."
sudanglo (Profil anzeigen) 7. September 2011 11:29:58
Whenever I read an Esperanto text I very often feel like correcting it; I would use another word, I would change the word order, I would correct lots of things, I don't like this or that because it is a clear calque from his native Russian or English.... etc, which never occurs to me when I read English or Spanish produced by their repective native speakers.But the thing about Esperanto - and one of the features that makes it much easier than a national language - is that doesn't carry the burden of idiomatic usage that natural languages bear.
So in Esperanto there may be a variety of ways of expressing something, and it doesn't make a very big difference which you choose, provided that you don't actually use a word in the wrong meaning.
I don't think that the 'calquing' of compound words in other languages is a frequent phenomenon in Esperanto, but the borrowing of structures does occur. So the same idea following one national language model might be expresed adjectivally, or following another language as a verb (or an adverb or a noun).
Because there is no body of native speakers to say that we don't say it that way, anything that is clear tends be acceptable.
When I read an Esperanto text, my gripe with any particular sentence tends to be that it lacks clarity, rather than that it doesn't conform to some usage sanctioned model.
I can say 'Pli bone tiel' or 'Tio pli bonas' or 'tio estas pli bona' and they all convey 'that's better'.
It often happens in the Forums that a beginner will ask 'how do you say X' and receive a variety of responses and the choice among them is down to stylistic preference, not a question of one wouldn't say that.
Chainy (Profil anzeigen) 7. September 2011 13:17:19
erinja:"Two small beers".It's true that if you ask for a beer in the UK, the person serving at the bar will assume that you want a pint (568ml), particularly if a man is ordering. Whereas in many parts of Germany and France my experience has been that they will assume you mean a smaller glass of beer, unless you specify otherwise. By 'smaller' I mean about 300ml.
The joke is that Europeans drink everything in such little glasses that what Europeans call a "small" beer doesn't even exist on the menu of a country like the UK or the US.
However, I don't think that UK drinks have generally reached the incredible proportions of American drinks just yet. It often seems that Americans prefer to drink out of things resembling buckets, rather than glasses or cups!
The American style huge-sized drink culture is noticeable in the UK if you go to the cinema or wander into a Starbucks. Try asking for 'small' drink there and the person serving you will just look at you like you're crazy.
Chainy (Profil anzeigen) 7. September 2011 13:40:58
erinja:"Two small beers".I'm not sure that's the 'joke'. First of all, I don't think it would be a big problem if someone were to ask for a 'small beer'. However, I suspect Sudanglo was referring to the fact that in the UK you usually ask for either a 'pint' (=568ml) or 'half a pint' of beer.
The joke is that Europeans drink everything in such little glasses that what Europeans call a "small" beer doesn't even exist on the menu of a country like the UK or the US.
So, a 'half pint' in the UK is actually a little smaller than the small size typically available in places such as France or Germany, which tends to be about 300ml.
mjdh1957 (Profil anzeigen) 7. September 2011 14:21:48
erinja (Profil anzeigen) 7. September 2011 14:22:08
Chainy:It often seems that Americans prefer to drink out of things resembling buckets, rather than glasses or cups!I'm of two minds on this one. On one hand, I agree that drinking sugary drinks or caffeinated drinks is better in small quantities (not to speak of alcoholic drinks). So I go to Europe and I see those things in smaller sizes, and I think "Yes, much healthier".
On the other hand, I want to drink a nice big glass of water! And in many places in Europe, you can't just ask for a huge glass of tap water. You can get a very small tap water, or you can buy a bottle of mineral water. I know that this is changing but the assumption that you should drink mineral water even in a country where the water is safe and tastes fine, seems silly to me. I hate paying for water, especially paying a lot for water.
Huge annoying issue during UK in Copenhagen - many/most restaurants in Copenhagen charge money for tap water. If I remember right, I think it was around DKK 10, which makes it around US $1.80 or EUR 1.35. I was absolutely appalled.