"Why are you always laughing?"
Translation:Kial vi ĉiam ridas?
7 Comments
Why is it "are you always laughing" and not "do you always laugh" in the English translation? When you say this in English without a context it sounds to me a bit as a complaint. Is it only me? If not, I think a more neutral wording should be used (as in the Esperanto version it's neutral).
Why is "Kial ĉiam vi ridas?" not accepted? Does this have a significantly different meaning?
I would understand your sentence as "Why is it always you that's laughing?".
So, in Duo's sentence, the "ĉiam" modifies "ridas"; in yours, it modifies "vi".
67
I got this sentence right because I speak a language that doesn't really distinguish between laughing and smiling, so I put ridas. In Persian you can alternatively distinguish them by saying "labĥand" for "smile" (lit. lip-laugh), or utilize the Arabic term "tabassum" for smile.
In Esperanto are there different words for laughing and smiling?
Usually, ridi is "laugh" and rideti is "smile" -- so "little-laugh" or something like that.
(Theoretically, rideti could also refer to a small laugh - a chuckle, perhaps - but in practice, it's lexicalised to mean "smile". PIV defines it only as the soundless mouth movement.)
