It is now possible for you to look out the window and say: "Pluvas!" (Or, "sunas", if the sun happens to be shining.) This is an important step in learning Esperanto; you can now tell other people what's going on with the weather.
On the other hand, it may be that you are comfortably sitting at your computer screen, reading e-mail or chatting with someone in some other part of the country, and you don't want to get up to see what the weather's like. Let your spouse do it -- that's what spouses are for, after all! Of course, the spouse in question may (himself or herself) be comfortable in some other chair, perhaps in front of some other monitor, and it may prove necessary to spur her (or him) on a bit, with a question. How do you ask questions in Esperanto?
There are actually two types of questions. The first is one which asks for specific information -- the "who, what, when, where, how" question. Let's leave that one for now. The second is much simpler -- it simply asks for a yes-or-no answer. In Esperanto you make such a question in one way: you take the original statement and turn it into a question by prefixing it with the little word "ĉu".
"Pluvas!" = "It's raining!"
"Ĉu pluvas?" = "Is it raining?"
English uses a similar system with some questions, using the verb forms "do" and "does" as prefixes equivalent to "ĉu". Unfortunately, in other situations you have to use a different system; for instance, you would rarely say "does it rain?", prefering instead a reversal of subject-verb order: "is it raining"? In Esperanto, you always use "ĉu", and while you're allowed to change the word order (if you have more than one word, which is not the case so far), it's not necessary, or evern preferred.
Of course, it's silly to ask a yes-or-no question if your spouse can't answer (or you can't understand) "yes" or "no". In Esperanto, "yes" is "jes" (which is prounced exactly as in English, though perhaps a bit more crisply) and "no" is "ne", which is like the "ne" in "net", but without the 't' on the end.
So your spouse can now answer your question: "Jes!" (if it happens to be raining) or "Ne!" (if it doesn't happen to be raining). And you need not leave your screen.
If the spouse in question wants to emphasize the "no" answer, he or she may want to be aware that "ne" in Esperanto does double duty; it means not only "no" but also "not". So the spouse may want to say: "Ne, ne pluvas!" ("No, it's not raining!").
Sometimes, you may want to use "Ĉu?" as a question by itself. This is perfectly legitimate, and corresponds to the comic word balloon containing only a question mark, or to our "Really?" or "Is that so?" or "Did he?"
Sometimes, "ĉu" is put together with "ne" to turn a positive statement into a question: "ĉu ne?", meaning roughly "isn't it", "doesn't it", etc. (I think I read somewhere that there are 22 different ways of saying this same thing in English, which would be nice if you could use them interchangeably, but I believe that you are not allowed to choose, but have to match them up with particular verbs.) So instead of asking your wife whether it's raining:
"Ĉu pluvas?"
you might want to indicate that you think that it's raining, but aren't sure, so please check ...
"Pluvas, ĉu ne?"
Of course, you might start by doubting that it's raining, but aren't quite sure. To turn a negative statement into a positive question, you can say "ĉu jes", but most people would simply add a "ĉu" without the "jes":
"Ne pluvas, ĉu?"
So you might have the following conversation:
(Spouse, looking out window): "Pluvas!"
(You, doubtful): "Ne, ne pluvas ... ĉu?"
(Spouse): "Jes, pluvas. Pluvegas.
(You): "Pluvetas, ĉu ne?"
(Spouse): "Ne, ne pluvetas, pluvegas."
(You): "Ĉu ne sunas?"
(Spouse): "Ne, ne sunas! Pluvegas!!"
At this point, your spouse probably wants to use some other words to you as well, but, perhaps fortunately, we haven't studied these yet.
Make up a few weather conversations of your own, for practice.
Posted by Don Harlow at February 15, 2004 11:45 AM | TrackBack