"Ne krokodilu!"
Translation:Do not speak your native language when Esperanto is more appropriate!
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"Don't crocodile!" also works. But it wouldn't be very useful if Duolingo listed that as the translation.
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There also are "ne aligatoru!" and "ne lacertu!" and they are all different. So "speak Esperanto" is not the exact translation.
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I have not come across "ne aligatoru!" or "ne lacertuloj!" (Did you mean "ne lacertulu!" by the way?) What do they mean? PIV doesn't include them.
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I have a hard time keeping the other ones straight. Aligatori and kajmani have to do with speaking national languages that are not your native language. I forget which is which but it has to do with whether one or both speakers is native.
Lacerti has two meanings - not really related. One has to do with speaking another planned language at an Esperanto event. If I had to guess, the second meaning has to do with speaking languages which you sort of understand because the languages are similar.
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Salivanto is right, it should be "ne lacertu". There are even more "reptiliumi" words: https://eo.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptiliumi
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I didn't say so explicitly, but I intended to agree with DavidLamb3 that I have not heard ne lacertu or ne aligatoru either - not in two decades of activity. Mostly these words are not used except to win trivia contests. It's possible that aligatori has found a new life in the word aligatorejo, but otherwise these are pretty rare. Certainly people don't run around telling other people not to do them. If they're used, they're used positively.
The one specimen that I recall "in the wild" was in an entry in Pasporta Servo many years ago. This was when it was in book form and space was limited. The description read, in part:
- La edzino kajmanas germane.
The translation, in context, would be something like:
- I am the only one in the house who speaks Esperanto, but my wife (in addition to being a native speaker of the local language) is a non-native speaker of German and would be willing to speak both languages with you.
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Nobody knows for sure. A plausible explanation is that someone once saw people who come to an Esperanto event to "not speak Esperanto" and compared them to a cold-blooded reptile with few redeeming social graces, and the comparison stuck.
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I've also heard a story connecting it to the expression "crocodile tears" ("a false, insincere display of emotion such as a hypocrite crying fake tears of grief. The phrase derives from an ancient belief that crocodiles shed tears while consuming their prey." - Wikipedia).
Something along the lines of "The learner says that they want to learn Esperanto but they keep speaking their own language at the Esperanto event. They're just as hypocritical as a crocodile crying while consuming its prey."
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I seem to remember Arika Okrent, in her book In the Land of Invented Languages, saying it had to do with the crocodile looking out from below the water, but I cannot remember the connection or whether she said where she learned that.
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Just realized "Don't crocodile!" is accepted. I've been typing in the whole "Do not speak your native language..." spiel every time there's been a question like this. I feel like a sucker. :P
I went through this exercise over and over before finally getting the wording just right enough to be accepted. "Would be more appropriate" feels more natural than "is more appropriate".
Yeah, I had a lot of issues trying to word this one just right, too.
By the way, are you using the "Report a problem" button to report things like these, though? I'm not sure how quickly the course creators would get to issues reported in the forums --if they check them at all! :-)
Yeah I did that as well. Since the Esperanto culture section has so many esoteric concepts, I wanted to discuss them on the forum as well to see if my suggestions are as accurate as I think they are.
I certainly agree with you: in fact, I believe I, too, submitted a report precisely suggesting "would be more appropriate," ha ha. Great minds think alike, hopefully? ;-)
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I reported this too and got this e-mail back in March:
"You suggested “Do not speak your native language when Esperanto would be more appropriate.” as a translation for “Ne krokodilu!” We now accept this translation. :)"
However, now the above answer seems to have been removed as an accepted translation :/
"The beginner is allowed to speak his native language when Esperanto would be more appropriate." is still accepted as an answer for "La komencanto rajtas krokodili." though.
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"Do not speak your native language when Esperanto would be more appropriate" is now accepted again :)
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There doesn't seem one correct way in English of translating this Esperanto idiom. It seems pot luck whether an answer is accepted.
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In English, this is quite an ironic statement, because do not speak your... Is so inefficient as apposed to ne krokudilu.
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In English the terms "native language" & "native tongue" are equivalent, but not recognized by the checking algorithm. Annoying.
Unfortunately there is no "checking algorithm": just translations entered by hand. If you think a correct translation is missing, you should use the "Report a problem" button to suggest it.
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I agree, but it is not possible to suggest alternatives now using the report button. The only thing you can do is to tick the "My answer should be accepted" box.
As far as I know, that IS the way to propose alternative answers, so yes, please do that.