"How old are they?"
Translation:Kiom ili aĝas?
17 Comments
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Well this is the most direct translation from English. That's it. So the correct form of what you propose "Kiom da jaroj ili havas" (or "havas ili") would work in practice, but it's not really a translation of this phrase is it?
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- 1829
As solidgitarius said, "ili" is the subject. But beyond that, only transitive verbs take objects. Not all verbs are transitive.
Does *kiom aĝas la hundoj?" Equal "how old are the dogs?" Or am i misunderstanding the words use?
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- 1829
aĝas is the present-tense form of the verb aĝi, which means "to be/have age".
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- 1829
No, because "kiom" is "how much/how many". It would probably be "Kio estas...?"
http://www.esperanto.org/stanford/korelativoj/
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- 911
Thanks. Whilst your answer might be right, the logic behind it does not follow. If "Kiom" is right for second person then why should "Kio" be right for third person? The converse also applies. The link you gave didn't help with this question.
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- 1829
1st, 2nd, 3rd person etc. has nothing to do with it, although if you want to be technical, then all correlatives are 3rd person by definition.
This link explains the correlatives in greater detail:
http://literaturo.org/HARLOW-Don/Esperanto/correlatives.html
"Kio" and "kiom" address different things entirely. "Kio" asks "what/which thing". "Kiom" asks "how much/how many".
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- 911
Thanks again. The person was again a red herring. I forgot what the original sentence was as I was typing - can't see it on the screen as I type - old age and short term memory problems. Sorry.
