- Forum >
- Topic: Esperanto >
- "Niaj strigoj ne malvarmas."
22 Comments
Mi ne certas kion vi celis skribi, sed ĉiukaze: "Ni servas malvarmajn strigojn" :-)
It either has something to do with the bird nest soup, or it should have been Niaj kalikoj ne malvarmas.
Could "malvarma" be used in a figurative way to mean "cold" emotionally?
I don't understand this, to BE cold...wouldn't the verb be 'estas'? ne estas malvarma
If we can just make verbs out of states of being, then why have estas at all? haha
It seems to me that making a verb out of cold would be To Cool...like I am cooling the food.
Which would make it seem like our owls are not cooling something...
To cool (actively) as in I cool something follow the next rule: Verbs that indicate passive states, such as "to die" (morti) can be added the affix -ig- to denote activeness. Therefore, mortigi would mean "to kill".
Mi malvarmigas strigojn = I cool down owls (for some reason), while Mi malvarmas = I'm cold. I hope that it is useful :)
Thanks adding the -ig- for active is helpful! I guess I'm still a little confused though on why there are some verbs that mean "to be <something>", seems like "esti <adjective>" would suffice.
There are two ways to indicate something has the property of an adective in Esperanto. The first is the same way as in English: esti + adjective. However, another way, which English doesn't really have the concept of, is just to turn the adjective into a verb. For Example:
Mia kato estas bela. or Mia kato belas.
Both mean my cat is beautiful. The adjective can do anything a verb can do, like go into other tenses and moods.
Mia kato belis. My cat was beautiful
Mia kato belos. My cat will be beautiful
Mia kato belus. My cat would be beautiful
Belu! Be beautiful! (sounds a bit harsh!)
If you don't understand these verb forms yet, don't worry; I expect that they will be covered in later skills. Also note that this can be done with any adjective.
The short answer is they just do. This is a common phenomenon in natural languages, the blending of verbs and adjectives. It doesn't happen much in English, but one example comes to mind: to suck. If you're describing something you don't like, you could say that it's sucky or that it sucks. The latter form is more compact and therefore better. Simple as that.
