"Estas glaso."

Translation: There is a glass.

[sarefo]

how do you say "it's glass"?

[bluematt]

"Glaso" refers to a glass (drinking vessel); "vitro" refers to glass (the material). So to say "it's [made of] glass" one might say "estas vitro".

[sarefo]

dankon :)

[temrix]

I think that this sentence is wrong. Unfortunately I cannot report it now as I don’t know anymore in which lesson it appeared.

One can say “Estas varma tago” translated as “It is a hot day”.
And one can say “Ĝi estas glaso” translated as “It is a glass”.

While “it” in the first sentence does not really refer to a thing, the word “it” in the second sentence refers to an object. (With object I don’t mean a grammatical one.)

[MailmanSpy]

The differentiation is a bit murky since you may choose to omit anything part of grammar in Esperanto, even though it is not recommended since it will mess up the meaning probably.

[LiamBeans]

Why wouldn't "It's glass" work here?

[Majklo_Blic]

I don't know why this was downvoted; it's a valid question.

bluematt said it first, but in short: glaso refers to the drinking vessel itself, not to its composition, which would be vitro.

Therefore, since the glass in question is a countable item, when translating this sentence into English you have to indicate the quantity, which we do here by using "a".

[BrandonAre2]

So why don't we translate it as "cup"? Wouldn't that clear up a lot of confusion?

[MailmanSpy]

"Taso" already means cup.

[BrandonAre2]

Yeah i figured that out in the next lesson haha

[RyanSucco]

So is Esperanto like Spanish in that the subject of the sentence can be omitted if it's a pronoun, or should this be "Gxi estas glaso"?

[bluematt]

Officially, not often, although in general use it can be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null-subject_language#Esperanto

[Ikamjh]

Why not this is a glass.

[MailmanSpy]

"This is a glass" would be "Ĉi tiu estas glaso"

[flootzavut]

I understand this can mean both it is a glass and there is a glass.

If I wanted to unambiguously it is a glass, I think I would say ĝi estas glaso.

I can't figure out, is there a way I could unambiguously say there is a glass?

[bluematt]

That would depend on context. e.g. If there was a box, and you asked "what's in the box?", someone might reply "estas glaso" (a glass exists [in the box]). If there was something here, and something there, one might say "tie estas glaso" (a glass exists yonder). These roughly translate, with emphasis, to "there IS a glass" and "THERE is a glass" respectively.

'There' is fairly ambiguous in English, not so much in Esperanto.

[flootzavut]

Ahh yeah that makes sense. Thanks!