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- Topic: Esperanto >
- "Adamo mem konstruis nenion."
20 Comments
"Thanks for announcing that to everyone, Duolingo; greatly appreciated" said Adamo.
Adam, the son of Zamenhof, didn't contribute to the Esperanto movement. So, maybe it's a reference.
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I mean, fr tho, I like the goal of the esperanto movement as I understand it (spreading and making humans understand each other to end wars) but like, some people in there, like in every community but still, are so close-minded and seem so butthurt.
Like, it's okay to not speak perfectly and make mistakes people, and you should not reject anyone regardless of what language they can speak (looking at people calling others crocodiles) and what they have done in the past...
(looking at people calling others crocodiles)
If you were to organize a chess tournament, what would you think if someone showed up and at every match tried to get people to play poker instead? Poker is a fine game. It's just not what people show up at chess matches for.
In the suggested translation "Adam himself built nothing." in English this can have both the nuance of "Adam built absolutely nothing, with or without help from others." OR "Adam may have built something, but if he did it was not by himself." Which nuance is being portrayed here in Esperanto????
Both. As in most languages, esperanto isnt made to be structurally unambigous. For that you can read about lojban.
To me "Adam himself built nothing" is not ambiguous. It very clearly means that he didn't actually build anything. He may have had things named after him - or may have commissioned some buildings which other people built, but he didn't build them.
If we want to say that he had help, we're more likely to say "he didn't build it by himself."
Mem is generally an emphatic particle - sort of a verbal underlining. Yes, it does have the secondary meaning "by oneself without help from others" - but it's usually clear from the context. I wouldn't understand this sentence this way. If I wanted to express the idea that Adam did build things but not by himself, I would say something like:
- Adamo konstruis nenion sola.
- Adamo konstruis nenion sen helpo.
- 41
The sentence that made the most sense to me (and was accepted) was: "Adam built nothing by himself"
In english this sentence has nothing to do with other people. Whether other people were involved or not, Adamo did no construction with his own hands. "Himself" and "by himself" are different.
I wrote 'Adam built himself nothing' and it was marked as correct, but from reading the thread, I am wondering if it should have been marked wrong, because my answer meant 'Adam might have built things for other people, but nothing for himself'
My take is that it's not correct. "He built himself nothing" means "he built nothing for himself" which is different.
- 332
I wrote "Adamo himself hasn't built a thing" to avoid a double negative and that was marked wrong. I don't get it.
It's a slightly free translation... not the first thing that would have come to mind. "He has built nothing" is not a double negative. If it happens again, you could report it... or you could answer more literally next ime.
