"What are they asking us?"
Translation:Kion ili demandas al ni?
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I still don't understand why this answer is being accepted. I still think that we can't have two direct objects in Esperanto, because it can make things ambiguous. Like, when you say "Kion ili demandas nin" we can't find out, whom we ask. Do we ask us, or do we ask "kio"? And also we can't find out, what are we asking for.
Maybe we can use two direct objects - as Duolingo says. But I don't like this rule. I'd rather use the only-one-accusative rule. When we use "al ni", we totally understand that they ask us. When we use "kion", we totally understand that it is the object of the demand.
You can change the order of phrase in esperanto, "Kion ili demandas ni" is the same as "Ili demandas ni kion"?
I believe that words that begin with "ki" are used to ask questions that cannot be answered by yes or no. "Ĉu" answers yes or no questions and turns statements like "La pomo estas sur la tablo"(The apple is on the table) into a question "Ĉu la pomo estas sur la tablo?"(Is the apple on the table?)
Hoping a better Esperanto speaker can clarify.
No, "kio" is not modifying the noun "ili". "Kio" is not an adjective. We can see by its o
ending that it is a noun/pronoun.
In the sentence "What are they asking us?", if we were to take the words out of the special interrogative order and back into ordinary declarative order, we would get "They are asking us what?"
So "what" is the direct object of "are asking". This gives it the accusative case. By putting -n
on ili
, you have turned the subject "they" into an object "them". This is not appropriate here. It's kio
that takes the -n
because it is the direct object of demandas
.