"Li aŭ ŝi pardonpetas."
Translation:He or she apologizes.
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The "Li aŭ ŝi..." part sounded so Chinese i literally went into Chinese mode XD.
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There is: ĝi.
Ĝi is literally defined as "it," but is also used for people whose gender is unknown.
One of the creative parts of Esperanto is the ability to form new words by combining others. Pardoni to pardon, and peti = to request.
What would be the literal meaning of 'pardonpetas'? Is it just 'to be sorry' ?
In Physics, we learned that "petal" as in "centripetal" means "seeking." I infer that this means "to seek forgiveness" ^_^
It's more like "to apologize" than "to be sorry". It literally means "to ask/beg forgiveness"
"to be sorry" in the English sense is the infinitive, or pardonpeti. "Perdonpetas" by itself must mean that the subject is obvious, in which case it depends on context. I'm unsure how much you can drop subjects in Esperanto though, a fluent person would have to answer that.
Yes! Traditionally, people use "li" when the person's sex/gender is unknown. Some people don't feel comfortable with that, and this is one of the alternatives to this usage of "li".
Because "or" means that only one of the two options is actually the correct one in the end. "Are" is the plural of "to be", unless it's referring to the second person.
