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I am not entirely sure, but I think there was a sentence in which the "multe" came before the verb. I think it was "Mi multe laboras". Does it mean that you can use it either before or after the verb? Is there a rule or not?
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Word order appears to be more fluid in Esperanto, so I think it's okay to go before or after the verb. I am curious how it works when there is more than one verb, though...
Esperanto is very flexible with word order so adverbs can be placed either before or after the verb. Word order becomes important for comprehension when you have more than one verb, depending if you want the adverb to apply to only one verb or the entire sentence or clause.
"La knabino laboras ne" is unusual, but not wrong, may appear for example in poetry
This is why I came to the comments. "The girl works not" seemed perfectly reasonable to me. :)
I got a dropdown list and 'ne' was listed. Does this work as well? Or does 'ne' have to go before the verb?
Ne almost always is before the verb, but for example if you wanted to negate the entire sentence you might put it at the end for emphasis - it likely would be understood in that sense, at least I would.
Seconded. I tried "La knabino laboras ne" and it wasn't accepted, but it's perfectly good Esperanto.
If you were given the English sentence "The girl works a lot" to translate into Esperanto, why would you imagine that "ne", meaning "no" or "not" would work?
Ah—there's one exercise that gives no English at all, but asks you to fill in the blank from a multiple-choice, like: "La knabino laboras ___" (multe/ne/kaj). That's the one I was doing! (Unless it actually did give the English and I just didn't see it, which would be embarrassing…)
That might explain it. I must say I have not seen a multiple choice question which doesn't give, in the other language, the meaning they are looking for.
"Much" does not work well for "a lot" or "greatly" here. It is less than very much. I wonder why they think it is acceptable for "multe".
But "much" does mean the same as "a lot". "Because of the rain, we couldn't spend much of the day outside." and "Did you see much of your cousin?" mean the same as "Because of the rain, we couldn't spend a lot of the day outside." and "Did you see a lot of your cousin?" I've looked up "much"as an adverb in several English-Esperanto dictionaries, and they all give "multe" as the Esperanto translation.
Of course "much" is less than "very much", just as in Esperanto, "multe" is less than "tre multe".
You are right. "very much" would be "tre multe", but "much" is usually used with at least one more word if only the word "of". "How much do you work?" would not be answered with "I work much." We would need to say how much: "so much", "very much" , "too much", "not so much", "much of the time", "much of the week" or "much of the day". I don't think that it is technically wrong, but that use of much is just lacking these days. You can use it in questions and negatives. "Do you go out much?" "Not much.", but the positive answer would be "I do." not "I go out much." Perhaps you could get away with "I do go out much." There is even a previous meaning of "much" for "many" which is obsolete. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/much
Perhaps part of the problem is that it is used as an adverb or an adjective as well as a pronoun. "He is much better." (adverb) , "He doesn't have much money." (adjective) No, that still doesn't explain why we use it in the negative, but find it odd in the positive.
You could also say "Nothing much happened." which is an idiom now and because of that idiom I could even understand someone saying "Much happened." stressing the word "much" to mean "a lot", but there it is used as a pronoun.
Perhaps it is because it has other meanings: "He has as much as I do." No, other words have many meanings. Why should a word become less used by itself for just one meaning? It is not used by itself here either: "as much".
Then there is the famous Shakespeare quote: "Much ado about nothing." (adjective) which perhaps shows that it was once used quite a bit more often.
I suppose "The girl works much." could perhaps be seen in a poem.
Of course, we need to keep in mind that "multe" is only used as an adverb.
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I think this might be another example of the English language varying around the world.
Did the 'la' combine with the k in 'knabino', or am I misunderstanding the speaker. Does Esperanto regularly connect pronunciation as in French?
Why doesn't labor work? laboras apparently means work yet labor is not only synonymous with work, they practically seem to be cognates.
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"To labor" is not used interchangeably with "to work." The verb "labor" has a literary quality and a connotation of toil and difficulty that mere "work" lacks.
I believe 86% of Esperanto is based of Latin / Romance languages so yea, it is very similar.
Because of the way that Esperanto works it doesn't have a set sentence structure, does that mean I could say "La knabino multe laboras" and it still be fine?
Yes, almost any word order is fine ("Laboras la knabino multe", "Multe la knabino laboras", "Multe laboras la knabino", for instance). I said "almost any", because you shouldn't separate "La" from "knabino" - "La laboras multe knabino" would not be right!!
Thanks :) Esperanto is really easy, learning it for the second time. Used to speak it a few years ago but stopped practicing and lost my vocabulary, learnt it through lernu back then. Duolingo is so much better
That's right. Nevertheless, "a lot" and "lots" are used interchangeably in English. It feels to me that "lots" should lead to a pass with a note attached rather than an outright fail.
It's informal and perhaps even 'proletarian' by some people's standards, but 'bad'?
You are right it is informal, but it is listed in the American dictionary. You could try reporting it. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lots
I personally don't like to use it, but I have heard people use it.
I wonder why "a lot" is so popular here?
You need to scroll down past the noun to "a lot".
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lot
I guess maybe I meant it sounds uneducated, not necessarily "bad". It just makes me cringe to hear it, but it could just be what I'm used to hearing and not hearing, and not that it's incorrect usage. I tried looking it up but found more questions than answers about it.
Actually, that would be "infanlaboraj leĝoj" or "leĝoj pri infanlaboro". ;-)
for "multe" does "very much" work? or is there another word for "very" or maybe "very much". I know not all words can be exactly translated between languages but I'm just curious :D
How do I say: The girl works a lot. A girl works a lot. A girl is working a lot.l The girl is working a lot.
Good question!
"Is working" and "works" are basically the same in meaning. If you want to say "a girl" instead of "the girl" you can simply drop the "la" to make "Knabino laboras multe."
That is a great language... But I cant learn it. It is too difficult to me even though I am a native portuguese speaker. What a shame!
I am surprised that you have learned English at least well enough to be able to write that message, but you say that Esperanto, which has none of the irregularities that English has, is too difficult for you. Is there anything that you think particularly makes Esperanto difficult for you?
Some people have very high expectations: even like 'why don't I understand it at once, if it is called international'.
