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Reflexive pronouns in Esperanto | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| rapp Senior Member United States Joined 5735 days ago 129 posts - 204 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Spanish | Message 1 of 10 17 March 2009 at 11:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm working my way though "A Complete Grammar of Esperanto" and wonder if someone can help me with a couple of the translation exercises.
I found a partial answer key for these exercises online, but don't understand a couple of its answers and am wondering if the key is wrong or I am. The English sentences to be translated into Esperanto are: 1. The table has red and blue and yellow flowers on it. 2. The birds saw the fruit on the tree in front of them, and flew to the branches. I translated these as: 1. La tablo havas ruĝajn kaj bluajn kaj flavajn florojn sur si. 2. La birdoj vidis la fruktojn sur la arbo antaŭ si, kaj flugis al la branĉoj. In both cases, I used the reflexive pronoun "si" because "it" in the first sentence and "them" in the second both are third-person pronouns that refer to the subject of the sentence. But the answer key used "ĝi" and "ili", respectively. Am I missing something, or is there a mistake in the answer key? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Andybolg Triglot Newbie Norway Joined 5992 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, German Studies: Japanese | Message 2 of 10 24 March 2009 at 11:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
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To me it looks like you have done everything correctly. I speak Esperanto to a certain degree and am native in Norwegian, which also has a reflexive pronoun.
You should try asking on the www.lernu.net forum. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| furrykef Senior Member United States furrykef.com/ Joined 6476 days ago 681 posts - 862 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian | Message 3 of 10 27 March 2009 at 8:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I suspect that probably either are acceptable. For instance, in English, using a reflexive pronoun in the first sentence is certainly unnatural; in the second, either would be possible. I'm not sure whether Romance languages would use a reflexive pronoun here, but I think in Spanish, at least, it wouldn't be obligatory.
Esperanto is generally very forgiving when there is a reasonable doubt about the "correct" way of saying something. Otherwise, it would evolve into a language as complex as natural languages, with many rules that aren't really all that necessary. - Kef Edited by furrykef on 27 March 2009 at 8:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6443 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 4 of 10 28 March 2009 at 2:39am | IP Logged | |||||
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As far as I'm concerned, only your answers are acceptable, and the answer key is plain wrong. Using a non-reflexive pronoun would mean that you were referring to something else.
Eg: Li parolas kun sia fratino (he speaks with his own sister). Li parolas kun lia fratino (he speaks with the sister of -some other- unspecified guy, but definitely not his own sister). Disclaimer: my Esperanto is not perfect; there's a chance I'm wrong, but this appears clear-cut to me. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| furrykef Senior Member United States furrykef.com/ Joined 6476 days ago 681 posts - 862 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian | Message 5 of 10 05 April 2009 at 5:25am | IP Logged | |||||
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Yeah, I've changed my mind and now agree with Volte: the reflexive pronoun is probably the only correct choice here. It's certainly the safer one.
This is, admittedly, one of the things that bugs me about Esperanto: it claims to be an easy language with very few rules, but it turns out that a lot of rules like these have come up over the years. Give it a century or two and it may be as complex as any natural language. - Kef 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| TDC Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6925 days ago 261 posts - 291 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, French Studies: Esperanto, Ukrainian, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Persian | Message 6 of 10 05 April 2009 at 5:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think we're trying to be way too direct from English here.
My variants 1. The table has red and blue and yellow flowers on it. 1. Sur la tablo estas ruĝajn kaj bluajn kaj flavajn florojn. 2. The birds saw the fruit on the tree in front of them, and flew to the branches. 2. La birdoj vidis la fruktojn sur la antaŭa arbo, kaj alflugis la branĉojn. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Oneskarf Newbie United States Joined 5954 days ago 21 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Yiddish | Message 7 of 10 06 April 2009 at 5:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Rapp, has the book already discussed reflexive pronouns and expected you to make use of them prior to this exercise about which you are now writing?
I'd say that both answers are completely correct, but that the use of the reflexive is more precise. The books I studied exposed me to the reflexive relatively late in the process and so many exercises didn't expect me to make use of it for a while. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Oneskarf Newbie United States Joined 5954 days ago 21 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Yiddish | Message 8 of 10 06 April 2009 at 5:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
The language is very, very easy (relatively speaking) to learn. You can be up and running in Esperanto in an extremely brief amount of time (as I'm sure you know). But the only way that the language is useful is for it to have enough precision for practical use. And that introduces things like the reflexive. Being able to speak to a group of advanced Esperanto speakers after a few weeks of study is a remarkable proof of concept to me. Now I work on mastering the language, which is always more difficult than simply making basic use of it. Toki Pona may be a lot easier and have fewer rules, but can you imagine conducting a meaningful business meeting in Toki Pona? (I know that's not what Toki Pona is for, I'm just using it as an example of the limitations placed on a language which so emphasises simplicity.)
It's astonishingly unchanged for the first century it's been in use, and changes made to it are remarkably conservative. I don't believe your statement will prove accurate, but even if it does, it will be a fun century or two of using Esperanto until then. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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