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- "Bonvolu ne!"
66 Comments
Watches those flames get higher and higher. Oh, no, no, please, God, help me!
This is... unsettling. If this is another way of saying 'no, thank you' then I'd be reassured - but comments below suggest it's not, and that giving 'no thank you' is marked as wrong (since presumably it'd be "Ne, dankon").
But what's the scenario here? Under what circumstances would this - what sounds to me like a desperate appeal for mercy - be used in normal conversation? Is 'No please' or 'Please no' used as an alternative to 'no, thank you' by Esperantists?
(I don't know how old your comment is, it won't tell me on mobile, so this could be eons old, and if that is the case then I apologize!)
There are plenty of times this could be used in regular conversation. It's just "please, no" with some emphasis from the exclamation point. It could be being used sarcastically or for dramatic effect, or it could be being used to express a disagreement about one preforming an action. The action in reference could be anything... A spouse wanting to ask for directions though the other is embarrassed to be perceived as a tourist. A customer being offered service above and beyond what they feel they need and not wanting to waste the time of the employee. Even something like a very young child protesting being put down for a nap, I know I've heard my friend's two year old say "please no!" plenty of times, just because he knows that a) please means he's more likely to get what he wants and b) "no" is his protest word for anything that is happening that he's not entirely happy about.
This sentence could totally mean something dark and creepy. It can definitely be perceived as unsettling. Or, it can be like you said, a way if saying "no, thank you," just with more emphasis (and possibly less politely.) It's all about context :)
Let me also mention that I am speaking from an American-English perspective, not an Esperantian perspective. I have no idea what the regular connotations for this sentence would be in Esperanto, but those are my two cents on the sentence "please, no!" in English.
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"Please, don't" is also accepted, and might be less unsettling.
Here's a possible scenario:
"I'm going to give you a makeover!"
"Please don't."
The first few times I saw this I said "Bonvenon" only to realize I was using the complete wrong word. XD
I'll defer, since you're level 6 in Russian and I haven't studied it at all... but... I thought 'Nyet' was 'no' in Russian?
And I know you left this six months ago, but I only just started on Duolingo - sorry. :o)
Ne refers to not or "no" in the numerical sense, as in "I have no questions" (Ne vabroseh); nyet refers to "no" in the standalone sense, as in "No, I'm Peter" (Nyet, ya Pyotr).
I agree. I thought it would be "No thank you" but I got that marked wrong. I'd never say "Please no". It just doesn't sound right nor does it roll off the tongue easily.
(Oddly, perhaps? I did the same thing! "Please, no!" is not something I think of as ordinary discourse.)
I would say that "mi petas" would be more like asking for something, it seems more formal to be(more like i would like), and "bonvolu" more like begging or a casual command/imperative. this is more from context ans general knowledge of romance and other languages than me actually knowing esperanto, i could be wrong.
Shady: I don't understand why you think they should mean the same thing. Mi petas (pronoun verb) translates to I ask, whereas bonvolu ( = please) is an interjection built from the adverb bone (well) and the imperative of the verb voli (wish). Am I missing something?
I'm not being sarcastic; I'm wondering whether I literally missed some lesson that contains information that prompted you to regard these expressions as identical. Thanks, anyone who can fill in the blanks.
No. Noone knows that. It's the secret beeing given over generation only to few people in the world, but even then it is given in a secret and unreadable form.
According to wiktionary, bonvolu is an interjection.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bonvolu
I don't think it's an imperative, as another user suggested; in English, every verb has a mood (indicative, imperative, or subjunctive), and the imperative is used to issue a command, such as Come here or Stop!
That same page also lists it as the imperative form of bonvoli. The -u suffix makes a word imperative.
What is the difference between please, no and don't please. I really don' t see the difference between the two translations.
"Please don't", is apparently correct. But I would say "don't please" is not correct English.
Doh! All this time I've been using bonvolu to mean "welcome" when the correct word is bonvenon! I'll have to get out of that habit.
