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- "Mi tiom amas vin!"
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In fact, the case needed here is vocative, but Esperanto only has accusative different from nominative. Tial, bonvolu skribu tiun sen -n.
tiom is specific, "that much," so it's an amount that's already been stated. "multe" is just "a lot," not a specific amount. So, for example, if I need a cup of flour in a recipe, and a cup of water, I need "unu taso da faruno kaj tiom akvo," a cup of flour and that much water. If I see a lot of trees in the woods, "estas multe arbo"
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As I understand, "tiom" is one of the correlatives. I haven't done all of this lesson yet (so I'm not sure how many others pop up here), but in previous lessons I've seen at least "ĉiom" (all of it), "kiom" (how much), and "iom" (some).
All of these words ending with "iom" are quantities, and the prefix is kind of the degree. There are other correlative stems like "io", which by itself means "something", and those can be expanded with the same prefixes. So "tio" is "that (thing)", "kio" is "what", "ĉio" is "everything.
Wikipedia has a table of them here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto_vocabulary#Correlatives
Sometimes I mistakenly place an "o" in my mind after the end of Vin... But I suppose both statements are true, anyways.
Hahaha. Well, technically no, because you'd need the accusative case: Mi tiom amas vinoṉ ;).
I realized that as soon as I had said it, but I decided not to correct it. My bad hahahaha
Does tiom have to go in front of amas? Would it work if I said it in the natural English order? "Mi amas vin tiom"
Not necessarily, so yes, that should be fine: you can say “Mi amas vin tiom”.
Im confused about tiom. True or false?: it can mean either "that much" or "so much", which mean different things. And "so much" is equal to "very much", isn't it? (...I'm not sure if "so much" in that sense is a commonly misused modernism, or if it is one of two grammatical meanings). If both propositions are true, then can't tiom mean "multe" or "very much"?
True. In the translation of Hamlet by Zamenhof himself: “Tie ĉi pendis la lipoj, kiujn mi kisadis tiom ofte.”, which originally was: “Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft.” The latter has the meaning of so often (i.e., so many times ≈ so much) rather than a specifically determined amount.
Thank you! Great example to illustrate! So is BelaFatreso's comment above not exactly correct?
You're welcome :). Indeed, not quite. But you can't use multe and tiom simply interchangeably either. Just like you cannot just replace ‘many’ by ‘so many’: the meaning changes in nuance.
Note actually that ‘that much/many’ and ‘so much/many’ are really one and the same, for the ‘specific amount’ in the latter is often very vaguely implied. For instance: “I have so much money [that it is not normal, that I cannot spend].” The ‘specific amount’, which is actually very inexact, is the required amount for it to be ‘not normal’ or for me to ‘not be able to spend’. This is why I think it is not weird at all that tiom encapsulates both meanings. (Also my native language Dutch has one word for both means: zoveel.)
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Not the required amount, but rather a qualifying amount. It's very unlikely that if the speaker drops a cent, the rest of it is no longer so much money that ... . (Otherwise, it would have been I have "enough" money to ... .)
The difference between "so much" and "that much" is, of course, that "that much" refers to a previously mentioned amount. "Do you have the money to buy the Brooklyn Bridge?" "Yes, I have that much money." On the other hand, "so much" requires the qualification to follow "I have so much money that buying the Golden Gate Bridge" will not make much of a difference."
(Your native language uses "zoveel" and "zo veel", though they've become confused to the point where they are often accepted in each other's stead.)
Indeed, qualifying amount was a better choice of words.
So effectively the meaning of ‘that much’ and ‘so much’ are equivalent up to the surrounding grammatical structure and context. I never considered that, so you are right that they cannot be used completely interchangeably, but they really are one and the same in the meaning they convey.
In Dutch zoveel and zo veel can be used in both contexts interchangeably and have no difference in meaning. (Dutch source). Where did you find that zoveel and zo veel have the same distinction as ‘that much’ and ‘so much’ have in English?
The difference is between:
- tiel ofte = so often; this many times.
- tiom ofte = so often; a lot of times.
- 128
Not quite. Hamlet mentions a specific amount, just not a specified amount: It's the number times he kissed those lips, though he doesn't know how often that is. Here, he probably doesn't know because it has been really often. The guy who has been hit on the head and has memory loss can say exactly the same, though, even if he may have kissed those lips only once. The Esperanto version doesn't mention that he doesn't know; it just doesn't specify the specific amount.
"Ĉar Dio tiel amis la mondon, ke Li donis Sian solenaskitan Filon, por ke ĉiu, kiu fidas al li, ne pereu, sed havu eternan vivon." (Johano 3:16)
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"Tiel", because it doesn't speak about the amount, but about the manner: Not "so much", but "so".
- 1006
I hate correlatives. They are supposed to be easy to construct from a set of rules. But what it makes is making them so similar that I keep confusing them.
So instead of memorizing merely 5 prefixes (one of which is blank and most just one letter) and 9 suffixes (one or two letters each), you'd prefer to memorize 45 arbitrary words?
Several of the suffixes and prefixes are quite logical: -o relates to nouns, -a relates to adjectives, -e relates to a location, which is generally an adverb (also, the English words ‘where’, ‘there’, ‘here’ etc. end in e, so that's how you can remember it), -el relates to manner/way of doing things, which are adverbs, hence the e. The ‘blank’ prefix indicates indeterminates, which kind of makes sense, and the negative prefix nen- contains ne.
The others are indeed arbitrary, but it is still way easier to memorize.
You can also make simple mnemonics for the other ones, e.g., kiu and ‘who’ end in the same sound, and for -om you can think of the m from ‘much/many’, so a quantity; or something like that. Hope that helps a bit!
Abso-freaking-lutely!!!! Individual words are so easy. Eight hundred trillion versions of the same word are immeasurably confusing.
I don't think you got my point. I'm arguing in favor of the correlatives and that the system is convenient and easy to learn and use. Many random individual words—like many other language have—is a huge hassle.
No, I got your point, but what is apparently so easy for you is the exact opposite for me. Learning words is immeasurably easier for me than having countless versions of the same word. I have pretty much given up on actually learning Esperanto, especially as more word versions are being introduced. The more lessons I complete, thus more word versions are introduced, the more trouble I am having keeping track. Regular word for word memorization on the other hand, is rarely any trouble.
Aha, I see. It wasn't really that easy, but I found it easier than a list of 45 random words. It did still take a lot of practice to not mix them up and be able to use them spontaneously. This is why I mentioned some of the mnemonics that you can try to get started and after a while it becomes automatic. But maybe it is also just the way we all absorb information in different manners; some things are just easier for some people, while others struggle with it, and vice versa.
A good way to learn them is to just learn the most frequent ones first: kiu/tiu, kio/tio, kiam/tiam, kie/tie. Then learn the others as you need them, and the logic will become more and more obvious.
Just like English hence/thence/whence, here/there/where, now/then/when. :-O
Bona maniero por lerni ilin estas nur lerni la plej oftajn unue: kiu/tiu, kio/tio, kiam/tiam, kie/tie. Poste, lernu la aliajn kiam vi bezonas ilin, kaj la logiko iĝos pli kaj pli videbla.
Simile al la angla hence/thence/whence, here/there/where, now/when/then. :-O
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I've encountered it in Clothes. Sometimes, to practice words that mean something in the context of a lesson, sentences are included that don't match that context, it seems.
Duolingo is also trying to get me to say "cool", because some people would apply that to clothes, but it does so by speaking about Esperanto. (I agree that there are holes in the language, and clothes are colder when they have more holes, but I don't think it can be transferred that way.)
It's one of the correlatives; it indicates a quantity (so it's like ‘that much/many’).
- 870
Word order is quite important in English. In English you would say "I love you a lot." However, "a lot" is usually "multe" in Esperanto. "Tiom" means "that much" or "to such an extent."
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Because that doesn't match one of the word orders English allows. Thus, we don't know who does the loving: The "I", the "you" or the "lot". Esperanto is less restricted where word order is concerned, as it uses the -n suffix to indicate the object. Thus, it's safe to say "Vin tiom amas mi!", as we can still see that "vin" is the object.
Tio temas pri specifa(j) objekto(j) aŭ afero(j), dum tiom temas pri kvanto. Jen kelkaj ekzemploj pri la diferenco inter la du:
- “Mi havas tion” = I have that;
- “Mi scias tion” = I know that;
- “Mi havas tiom” = I have so much/that much (aŭ ‘many’, se temas pri io plurala);
- “Mi scias tiom” = I know so much/that much ''.
Mi tiom amas manĝi vin. Since this is the food portion of the course.
The sentence sounds quite weird in English and it seems it isn't better in Esperanto either...
