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- Topic: Esperanto >
- "Ni staras kune en la strato."
17 Comments
Is there a big difference between "in the street" and "on the street" here? Rephrasing my question, does "strato" only works for the limited space you're in, or also for the pavement you're on? Dankon!
Tips & Notes: "Try to think of the most literal sense of a preposition to discover the correct word to use in Esperanto. Thus, you would say that you stand "on the street", not "in the street" (which would be quite dangerous if you think about it!)."
... oh wait ! ;-p
I was thinking the same thing, duonks. I guess "street" can be interpreted a bit more abstractly, and then you're in it. Perhaps you could also say "on" ("sur") when you're talking more literally, and you mean to emphasize the surface you're standing on, or some such?
In Spanish for example you would only say "en la calle" - also literally "in". For German it would be "auf der Straße" - "on". I guess each language has evolved a preferred way to express this, and for Esperanto it happens to be "en" = "in" (= "on") ... Oh dear I'm getting confused again ! :-p
I know, but since they said it was "the most literal way" in Esperanto, I figured that was a general rule for the language, which is why I was kind of speculating around that.
Dutch is "op straat", which also means "on (the) street".
I've never really given it much thought before but it's interesting that in English we use in the street to refer to being actually positioned there and on the street for more general, less tangible uses (i.e. "have you heard the word on the street?", "she makes her money out on the street").
Thanks - I had a crash course in "en" vs. "sur" yesterday, so I wouldn't question myself about that again :)
Excellent, thank you for that link! I was hoping for an Esperanto corpus somewhere.
thanks!
to me "en la strato" does not sound wrong, but still "a bit English" (anglema). I would prefer "sur la strato", but that's probably because I am German. ;-)
Kial vi ne demandas la infanoj ĉe tiananmen square? Estis moda kial ili estis tie?
After reading the comments on the various languages in which there appears to be a similar level of ambiguity, it seems to me that context would have to be the deciding factor.
