"Ĉu vi scipovas paroli Esperanton?"
Translation:Do you know how to speak Esperanto?
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Didn't know you could do that with verbs, too. Esperanto is truly a Lego language.
You can do everything here. You will surprise with some verbs that are just some affixes with the termination -i, like iĝi, igi, eki, disi, emi, etc :)
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You can have compound verbs in English too, just that they are exceptionally rare. For example, "kickstart" is a compound verb.
Scii is about the knowledge, povi about having the strength, skill or ability which is necessary to do something. Scipovi is when the ability is based on the knowledge. And don’t forget the word "kapabli" when it is about the general capability.
Yeah "scii" + "povi" = "scipovi" as in like "have the knowledge so you can do it"
In my mind, I read "scipovi" as "to know how," even though that translation doesn't work literally. I'm guessing the literal might be something about "know how to be able" or "know (that the subject) can."
Anyhow, "know how" has worked pretty well for me so far.
E.g.: Mi scipovas fari tion / I know how to do that.
Mi scipovas legi libron / I know how to read a book.
Mi opinias ke mi scipovas uzi scipovi. ;)
It's like the Polish umieć, or Mandarin 会 (hui4); it's something you have to study or learn to be able to do, i.e. swim, surf, ski, speak a language, read, cook etc.
I gave the Polish and Mandarin examples in case you would like to directly translate those specific words and find an equivalent to a language you're already familiar with, which I see there are quite a few!
"Scipovo" seems almost perfectly equivalent to the American English "know-how," and "scipovi" would be the verb form.
I was under the impression that "Cxu vi parolas la francan" would work; I've never seen "la esperanton". Am I missing something?
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I'm not quite sure what you're asking about here, but if it's the difference between -a/an for any other language and -o/on for Esperanto, I recall it being mentioned in one of the earlier units' tips sections that Esperanto is unique and always gets treated as a noun in these cases.
Which I guess means distinguishing between the language Esperanto and one who actually hopes just has to be via context (and capitalization?).
It's an artificial language, that's why. Artificial languages and dead languages don't tend to have the la
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Whoops -- forgot that. I found the relevant page, and it looks like it covers that difference too, though not too explicitly -- https://www.duolingo.com/skill/eo/Languages
Paroli la esperantan is a logic sentence, but it is not used.
We use to say "Paroli Esperanton".
You answer within an answer then seems to be that the infix -et- will suit your need for most verbs. Being still a learner myself, I feel drawn to saying (using the example above):
Mi iomete scias esperanton. (Loosely translated/guessing, I'd say that amounts to "I somewhat know Esperanto.")
P. S. and because there's an -et- in my example, I believe you can alternately choose "Mi iome scias"; whichever best captures your level of insecurity really. ;)
The new speaker knows how to speak Esperanto, just does not know how to enunciate as clearly as the original translations.
How would you say "Did you know how to speak Esperanto?". The past-tense in "paroli" confused me.
Paroli is the infinitive. There is no past tense in it.
As always you change from -as to -is to get past tense: Ĉu vi scipovis paroli Esperanton?