"Ĉu vi estas patrino?"
Translation:Are you a mother?
39 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
This is going to mess me up because pat- usually is the prefix for fatherly words. Paternal, Patriot (People who supported the founding fathers), etc.
But then again - if anyone's been paying attention they would notice that -ino implies feminine.
Yes, I've noticed now, I'm getting more used with that suffix. Thank you though!
This is the logic and simplicity of Esperanto. Some would consider it a bit sexist, but it is efficient.
If they consider this sexist, then they should tell the millions and millions of people who speak arabic and hebrew that their language is sexist.
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They came from sexist culture but developed naturally. You'd hope a planned language would be less sexist but it was developed during a pretty sexist time.
I mean just because it would be awkward to tell somebody that doesn't mean it isn't true. Not saying it is or isn't, but this isn't a great defense.
I feel like there should be an '-en' suffix for male and an '-in' suffix for female, but that's just me.....
I think some tried to integrate male gender, but it isn't practical, and loses a lot of the simplicity.
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AlexeiNewt linked to the English Wikipedia article which, of course, mentions that.
I have, however, never heard or read -iĉo being used in practice. It might have been an interesting idea 130 years ago. Now it's much easier to use all nouns denominating persons in a gender-independent way, except for family relations. So patrino still means mother and patro still means father.
I will delete my comment in a few days as I consider it insignificant, except for answering to Pojk.
It's a latin root "pater" (father). With the time and mixings other languages which adopted latin roots didn't always used them in the original sense.
Think on it like a "false friend", like in many other languages happens.
Why can't I write "Cxu vi estas patrino"? The word "Cxu" is correct -.-' buf!
Yes! It worked on PC/laptop... But the x system doesn't work in the phone app I guess
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The x system works in DL because they added the x sentences as "alternatives." So it works in the mobile app as well -- where there's more need for it, since it doesn't have the browser version's screen keyboard.
I don't have the option on my keyboard for the correct accents on cu, gi, etc... I looked and there is no Esperanto language option, either. Any suggestions?
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What OS do you have?
EDIT: Wait never mind, here's a link that can help with all OS's: http://en.esperanto.org.nz/how-to-learn-esperanto/how-to-type-esperanto-characters
Accented characters are written with an x if you can't type the character. For instance, ĉ -> cx, ĝ -> gx. I use these when I'm under Windows.
There is also software that will add 'Compose' key functionality if you type in Esperanto enough. That allows you to type something like Alt + Shift + 6 then g to get ĝx.
There are other keyboards you can install (if it's on your phone) , then give permissions in your keyboard settings, but I haven't done it. Kind of skeery to give another app permissions to my phone. I think one is called Anysoft Keyboard. Just google for Esperanto keyboards.
I am not sure whether it happend due getting used to esperanto or it is actually my own mistake, but does the sentence "Are you a mother?" needs this "a" article?
It was marked as wrong translation.
Without it you are asking "Are you mother?" which would be asking in English if she is your own mother. It would become the word you call your mother rather than a word for mother.
No, the verb "to be" is a helping verb, (like may, might, must, be, being, been, am, is, are, was, were, do, does, did, should, could, would, have, has, had, will, can, and shall) and because "patrino" is a complement to the subject using the helping verb, it's actually a predicate nominative, which doesn't take a "n".
It's been that way for a while. I think it's because it's an uppercase Cx. Normally it accepts it as a typo if the rest of the sentence is OK.