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- "Vi parolas multe."
44 Comments
They're synonyms. "Mal-" is a prefix that turns a word into its opposite. For example, the opposite of sonora is silenta, but if you don't know/remember that, you can say malsonora instead, which means the same thing.
"A little" can be "malmulte" in some phrases. For example, "he has a little money" is "li havas malmulte da mono" (tatoeba.org/sentences/show/434894).
I think it's just because it doesn't sound very natural in English. You would say 'you speak a lot'.
I think "You speak much" is technically correct. My computer's dictionary lists "much" as an adverb. But I agree with stupidfool99. It does sound very very unnatural.
What it sounds like in English is irrelevant; "The man quicks" makes little or no sense in English, however "La viro rapidas" is a perfectly valid sentence in Esperanto.
It is decidedly relevant when translating into English. To translate "La viro rapidas" into English as "The man quicks" would and should be marked incorrect. I'm sure there are situations where a too-literal translation into Esperanto from English would also be incorrect.
Just because "The man quicks" is a literal translation from Esperanto does not make it an acceptable translation. Similarly, "You speak much" is not a translation into correct English. The point is to translate into correct English/Esperanto.
It's the same with any language which works differently from English. Russian does not use articles and doesn't usually use the verb 'to be' in the present tense. That doesn't mean that "Мальчик голоден, он ест яблоко" should be translated "Boy hungry, he eats apple", because that isn't correct English.
Oh, right. I had gotten your reasoning backwards.For some reason I was thinking you were saying that it couldn't be like that in Esperanto because it didn't make sense in English. I don't think, however, that it would sound unnatural in English. That might be because I'm not a native speaker, though.
It should be correct, although it is less common than 'a lot'. 'Much' is more often used in negative sentences. But 'much' and 'a lot' are technically interchangeable. Example: Thanks very much. - Thanks a lot. (source: New Oxford American Dictionary)
as a person who doesn't talk a lot, i always hear "you speak/talk much" as a very informal question (like a short version of "you don't talk much, do you?"), not a statement. i think the best answer for this would be "you talk too much" or "you talk a lot"
Just because they're interchangeable in one instance doesn't mean they're always interchangeable.
It sounds natural, but I'm not sure it's an accurate translation of the sentence. I think that would be "Vi parolas tro multe." Disclaimer; I have been learning EO somewhat less than a year, so don't take my word as gospel :)
I answered with you "You talk too much" and it didn't take it. Would it have taken it if I said "You're talking too much." Or is the only correct translation; "you are talking a lot"
I think too much would require "tro". You talk (are talking) a lot - Vi parolas multe. You talk too much - Vi parolas tro multe.
Quantitatively. I understand this phrase as "you are talking for a long time" or "you talk several times".
Dankon! How to say this same phrase in Esperanto in the qualitative sense without the use of "bona".
Ne dankinde! We can say:
Vi bone parolas. Vi tre bone parolas. Vi bele parolas. Vi ĝuste parolas. Vi senerare parolas.
But the meanings are not the same.
I keep mixing up the Swedish word "vi" (as in we) with the Esperatno "vi" (for you)!
In American English (and perhaps in other English dialects) "to speak" and "to talk" have different meanings: speaking is typically one-sided (a related idea is "to give a speech"), whereas talking implies that one is conversing (at least expecting to converse, or believing they are, even if they talk to much).
Does Esperanto make such a distinction?
For what it's worth, I am a native English speaker, and I think "much" is completely acceptable here. In fact, it is the word I would use in real conversation.
I admit it is not colloquial, but it is correct. I often get strange looks for speaking this way because it sounds unnatural.
The distinction to make here is that "a lot" is colloquial.
I dislike the use of "a lot" because it references a physical quantity or a collection of something. One cannot quantify speaking. One can quantify words or time, but even those are not physical objects that could be sorted into lots.
By contrast, one can have "a lot" of objects. In which case it is appropriate to use the phrase.
Example: "I eat a lot of oranges, but I do not eat much."
