"What are they asking us?"
Translation:Kion ili demandas al ni?
19 Comments
You can change the order of phrase in esperanto, "Kion ili demandas ni" is the same as "Ili demandas ni kion"?
Yes, I'm a bit baffled by this. I put "Kio ili demandas nin?" and was marked wrong, with the correct answer stated as "Kion ili demandas nin?" (exactly as arthur0703 says above). As Mutusen says, this appears to have two direct objects? Kio has -n added and so does ni - what am I missing?
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.
If im high lighting over "are", then dont put the "cu estas" there since im going to assume thats the right wording for it.
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.
Hope I am understand this right. Because "Kion" has the "n" it is modifying the noun "ili"? Would "Kio ilin demandas al in?" work?
1890
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.
Dankon pro via helpo. Mi havas malriĉa scio en gramatiko. Studi Esperanton helpas min iĝi dulingva kaj lerni baza gramatiko.
- 1890
Nedankinde!
Mi pensas, ke estas "malbona" scio, ne "malriĉa" scio. Ĉu la angla kaj Esperanto uzas la saman metaforon?
Mi ne pensas tiel. Ĉar Mi estas komencanto mia unua lingvo estas montranta.
Vi estas probable pravas
Not really. Think about the sentence, "They are asking us that". "That" is the direct object of the sentence. It's the same in "They are asking us WHAT?" or the more common "What are they asking us?". And the accusative is used for direct objects.
