"Oni ne metu glaciaĵon en pakaĵon!"
Translation:One does not put ice cream into a package!
27 Comments
Why is it "Oni ne metu" instead of "Oni ne metas"? How can you have an imperative "one"?
It becomes something like "One should(n't)".
Third-person imperatives also occur in sentences such as "God save the Queen" or "Long live the king".
You could also think about recipes; in German, they sometimes also use "one" as subject and then use a kind of imperative form, leading to things such as "One (should) take an egg and crack it into a bowl. Then one should add salt. One should put the mixture ..." etc.
In Esperanto, one could use "oni ...-u" for such things as well.
Or think of things such as "One should listen" - that could be "oni aŭskultu".
The -u ending is not actually imperative. It's jussive/optative. It expresses what should happen.
Mi iru = I should go Ni iru = we should go, let's go (Vi) iru = (you should) go
Actually, it can be any of the above (jussive, optative, imperative), depending on context.
1185
imperative/jussive/optative ... I just say that the -u ending is used when there is pressure to do something.
- Iru
- ni iru
- oni ne iru tien.
- mi volas ke vi iru tien.
I thought "Ni iru" is more close to "Let us go" and similarly "Mi iru" is "Let me go" (as in "let me go and get some cheese"), so I typed "Don't let one put the ice cream ~~". Can I interpret -u in this form?
- 1726
What if it's freeze-dried Astronaut ice cream? By the way, would freeze-dried ice cream in Esperanto be malvarmasekiĝis glaciaĵon?
Probably "liofilizita glaciaĵo", i.e. lyophilised ice cream.
Also note that freeze-dried uses the English past participle, not the simple past, so you can't translate it with the Esperanto -is ending.
Why is package in the accusative case since it is the object of preposition ? Does it have something to do with the preceding now being in the accusative case ?
There are a number of prepositions that can take either the nominative or the accusative case: the nominative when they describe location and the accusative when they describe motion.
"En" is one of this group of adjectives.
"en pakaĵo" = in a package (location) vs. "en pakaĵon" = into a package (motion).
Other prepositions in this category include sur, super, sub, inter, trans, and tra.
(Notably not in this category is al, which always involves motion and so, since it doesn't have to make a distinction, follows the general rule that prepositions are followed by the nominative.)
How does ice become ice cream? I sort of understand it for water based frozen treats, but not for anything I would purchase that is called ice cream?
Yeah, this one is really weird to me because the word glaciaĵo just translates to 'ice thing'.
- 971
Even Esperanto is weird sometimes. It's just, usually, less weird than English.
In standard (UK) English the word "ices" can refer to "ice creams".
What is the difference between "pako" and "pakaĵo"? I've tried looking it up in several dictionaries, but it is still not clear. Is it about size?
- 1185
I've gone 20 years and never used the word pako. That's the only difference I can see.
Why pakaĵon is here accusative? it is not harmful and ambiguous instead of being useful for being unambiguous?
Can anyone tell me the real esperanto words for luggage and package, or is this another case of esperanto using the same word for two entirely different concepts?
