"I want most of the bowls, because half of them is not enough."
Translation:Mi volas la plejparton de la bovloj, ĉar duono de ili ne estas sufiĉa.
19 Comments
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Why doesn't this us da? I thought da was for amounts. I put "mi volas la plejparton da bovloj"
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Da is used to connect a measuring word with a thing measured as long as the thing measured is indefinite. If it's definite, then you use "de".
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I don't understand this well at all. Why do we use plejparto and not just plej for most? Why is there a "la" before plejparton? Why is the accusative (?) -n on plejparto and not bovloj? Thanks.
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It translates as "I want the majority of the bowls" (that's why you have the definite article and "la plejparto", the majority; "la plejparto de", most of). You don't use the accusative after almost all prepositions.
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The entire construction appears to have been lifted from French (and possibly elsewhere), where it's "la plupart des boules" ("des" being short for "de + les").
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Ok, I'm confused. I put "la plejparton da la bovloj" because in the previous sentence it corrected me and put "la plejparto da la francoj". Can someone explain why SOMETIMES it's "de" and other times it's "da", because I simply do not understand.
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Short answer, because in Esperanto you never say "da la" -- it's always either "da" or "de la".
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After having read the explanations below, I'm afraid I still don't understand why my "Mi volas plej de la bovloj, ĉar duono de ili ne estas sufiĉa" was not accepted. What's the difference between plej and la plejparton?
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Always think of "la plejparto" as "the majority".
So, if the English sentence says "I want the majority of bowls" or "I want most of the bowls", then in both cases, it's clear that the person wants the "majority" of the bowls, which in Esperanto, is translated as "la plejparto de la bovloj".
On the other hand, "plej" by itself is an entirely different thing.
In English, you have an "adjective" like "good", a comparative like "bettER", and a superlative like "bEST".
In Esperanto, the equivalent adjective would be "bona", the comparative is "PLI bona", and the superlative is "PLEJ bona". That is the function of "plej".
The confusion comes because they both can have the meaning "most", but this is because in English, the word most serves more than one function.
You can say "I want most of the bowls", and by that you mean the "majority", but also, some superlatives in English don't follow the same pattern as "better - best", they use the form "MOST xyz", for example, the adjective "fun", comparative "MORE fun", superlative "the MOST fun".
So, to summarize:
- "la plejparto" always means "the majority of " something
- "plej" always means the superlative of an adjective, like "bEST", "greatEST", or "the MOST fun".
hope that helps.
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Это же родительный падеж, для него окончание '-n' не используется (becouse it is genetive)
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Why does Duolingo automatically do some of the assignments for me lol
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First - I'm curious where you're seeing this. A little more context might get you a better answer.
A good place to start would be my blog post from last month (see link) where I talk about de and da in some detail.
I am not convinced that it's possible to make a general rule as you have done here. There are situations where we would say "duono da" and there are situations where we would say "du de". In this particular case de ili is correct because ili refers to la bovoloj and is definite.
I'm not convinced that "du da" is a valid expression. (I'm not convinced that it isn't.) I've looked for an example of it used that way so I can put my answer in context, but I haven't found one yet. If you could let me know what sentence you're looking at and where you're seeing it, I could do a better job of explaining it for you (or of letting you know why the example is wrong, if it's wrong.)
