"Multaj esperantistoj estas afablaj kaj interesaj."
Translation:Many Esperanto speakers are nice and interesting.
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796
Right
I find the Esperanto comunity very nice
Mi trovas la esperantan
komunumon
tre afabla
No, you actually mustn't use it here: it changes the meaning. Here afabla is a predicative: it describes the condition of other things. If you use the accusative case here, afablan becomes a normal adjective to komunumon. This changes the meaning entirely:
Mi trovas la Esperantan komunumon tre afabla = I find the Esperanto community very nice. [afabla describes the state of the opinion I have]
Mi trovas la Esperantan komunumon tre afablan = I find the very nice Esperanto community*. [as in, I have located it]
Here are some more such examples:
Mi farbas la domon blua = I paint the house blue. [after painting it, it is blue]
Mi farbas la domon bluan = I paint the blue house [before painting it, it was blue, but no information is given about the current color]
Sometimes it can become actually ambiguous:
Mi hejmen veturigis la knabon ebria = I drove the guy home drunk.
This can mean that when I arrived at his house, the guy was still drunk, or that I was still drunk!
If you change the accusative case:
Mi hejmen veturigis la knabon ebrian = I drove the drunk guy home.
I hope this clears it up a bit!
How is interesi derived from interesa?
It's not. It's the other way around.
This is part of the reason why I harp so much on this idea that "you can change adjectives to verbs" that many people repeat in these forums and which one of the early contributors to the Duolingo course even said was a sign of a "fluent speaker" and pushed so hard in the early versions of the course.
This is simply wrong. There is no "rule" that says you can change adjectives to verbs.
The main form of the word is interesi - as in tio interesas min
"That interests me."
Adding iĝ changes it from one kind of verb into another.
- Tio interesas min. That interests me.
- Mi interesiĝas pri tio. I am interested in that.
Remember interesi is a verb - so adding iĝ impacts the verb form, not the adjective form - so it doesn't mean "become interesting" but rather "to be interested."
But why is it passive?
It's not passive. Yes, it sounds kind of passive - but it's just as passive as saying "when one door closes, another door opens."
- Mi fermas la pordon. I close the door.
- La pordo fermiĝas. The door closes.
It's just a quirk of English that allows us to say:
- I close the door / the door closes.
But not.
- That interests me. / I interest about that.
But the relationship between the words is the same, and this is reflected in the form in Esperanto.
Words like "interesa" cause me trouble. In this case, it's the adjective "interesting".
Presumably a verb form might be "interesi" or "to be interesting". And I would assume it could also be transitive as in "interesi iun" or "to interest someone".
I would also assume that if you modify the verb into "interesiĝas", the meaning would change to "to become interesting". However, I'm told that it actually means "to be interested". This confuses me. I would have assumed that "to be interested" would use the passive voice of the transitive form of the verb, "interesitas".
So is "Mi interesitas" valid as "I'm interested"? (Or interesatas?) Or is it only "Mi interesiĝas"? If so, how would one say "to become interesting"?
This is part of the reason why I harp so much on this idea that "you can change adjectives to verbs" that many people repeat in these forums and which one of the early contributors to the Duolingo course even said was a sign of a "fluent speaker" and pushed so hard in the early versions of the course.
This is simply wrong. There is no "rule" that says you can change adjectives to verbs.
The main form of the word is interesi - as in tio interesas min
"That interests me."
Adding iĝ changes it from one kind of verb into another.
- Tio interesas min. That interests me.
- Mi interesiĝas pri tio. I am interested in that.
Remember interesi is a verb - so adding iĝ impacts the verb form, not the adjective form - so it doesn't mean "become interesting" but rather "to be interested."
But why is it passive?
It's not passive. Yes, it sounds kind of passive - but it's just as passive as saying "when one door closes, another door opens."
- Mi fermas la pordon. I close the door.
- La pordo fermiĝas. The door closes.
It's just a quirk of English that allows us to say:
- I close the door / the door closes.
But not.
- That interests me. / I interest about that.
But the relationship between the words is the same, and this is reflected in the form in Esperanto.
848
In the above translation I want to hyphenate 'esperanto-speakers' but was cautioned for lacking a space (the hyphen.) If I were to write this without hyphen I would use 'speakers of esperanto'.
1544
Ne vera, mi nek estas afabla nek interesa. Mi estas nur esperantisto, kiu volas liberiĝi de ĉiuj neesperantistoj. Muah-ha-ha!
1544
Ĝenerale, kiel bonaj homoj multaj esperantistoj estas perceptataj . Sed ĉiam estas iuj nigraj ŝafoj, kiuj estas disĉiploj de la malluma flanko.