"Is the flag red or blue?"
Translation:Ĉu la flago estas ruĝa aŭ blua?
21 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
August 2015:
Why rugas and bluas rather than ruga snd blua?
Note the actual "best translation" at the top of the page.
- "Is the flag red or blue?"
- Translation:Ĉu la flago estas ruĝa aŭ blua?
If anybody is getting a DIFFERENT correction, please note that this is a quirk of Duolingo. See links for more detail.
1324
The Esperanto Language Blog has a helpful post about this:
https://blogs.transparent.com/esperanto/adjectives-love-em-leave-em/
- 1324
Ĉu la flago estas ruĝa aŭ blua = Is the flag red or blue?
Ĉu estas la flago ruĝa aŭ blua = Is it the red or blue flag?
The way Esperanto uses "Ĉu" to make a question is to put it in front of a sentence with the normal word order. The sentence (as opposed to the question) is: "La flago estas ruĝa aŭ blua". To turn that sentence into a a question, keep the same word order, and just put "Ĉu" in front, so: "Ĉu la flago estas ruĝa aŭ blua?"
la Ordo de la vortoj ne Estas grava en Esperanto Ĉu la flago Estas.. = Ĉu estas la flago..
That is not true. For verbs like 'esti' the order matters very much as there is no way to denote an "object" for it.
I thought the same thing, but you technically could respond with "Yes, the flag is red or blue."
What is the difference between "Ĉu" and "Cxu"? Additionally, why is "estas" the only verb (that I know) that doesn't use the "n" ending on the direct object? I'm not sure that it is because of it being a helping verb or not because isn't have a helping verb?
The actual Esperanto word is "ĉu", but for anyone who has no access to the Esperanto letters ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ and ŭ, there is a system known as "the x system" where the letters with "hats" are written cs, gx, hx, jx sx and ux. You clearly can type the Esperanto characters anyway, so you don't need to bother with the x system, except for reading other people's posts. Regarding your second question, first, "esti" isn't the only verb that doesn't take the accusative. Another example is "fariĝi" (to become). The reason for this is that the accusative is required only when some action is taking place on something or someone. So, in "The boy hits the dog", an action is taking place on the dog - the poor thing is being hit - so it's "La knabo batas la hundon". But in "The boy is a pupil" there is no action. The sentence just tells us what the boy is, so no accusative is required: "La knabo estas lernejano". The same with "The prince became a king". "La princo fariĝis reĝo". So it is nothing to do with whether in a particular sentence "esti" is being used as a helping verb. I hope that helps.
Did you perhaps leave out the verb "estas"? Next time, copy and paste your full answer so we can see what's going on?
The way of using "ĉu" to turn a sentence into a question is to keep the word order as it is in the sentence (so here, "La flago estas ruĝa aŭ blua), and just put "ĉu" in front: "Ĉu la flago estas ruĝa aŭ blua?" As a result, in this particular case, a noun comes before a verb.