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Subject: Re: [lojban-beginners] Trying my first translation ... a few questions.
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Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2015 22:36:31 +0200
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la .xabyltos. cu cusku di'e
> So now I am trying to translate an "early reader" book to Lojban.  I
> have noticed that it really requires you to understand and think about
> the grammar of the sentence more than I would normally do.  I am hoping
> that this is a learned thing, and that it will be come easier as time
> passes, as I think it was tripping me up initially.
>
> So, the name of the book is "The Puppy Who Lost his Bark".   Initially,
> I thought that I needed to use "lost" as my selbri, and build the rest
> of the sentence around that.  What I got was
>
> lo cityge'u ma cu cirko le ri gercmo
>
> Which I really knew was not right.  "ma" is completely out of place and
> doesn't fit into the sentence structure.  Then it dawned on me that I
> was dealing with a relative clause, and I think I got it right the
> second time around.
>
> lo cityge'u poi ma kau cirko le ke'a gercmo

You would just use {ke'a} instead of {ma kau} here.

Secondly, I'd use {la} because the whole thing seems to be a name.

Lastly, {le ke'a gercmo} doesn't mean "his bark" but "his barker" ("the 
thing associated with him that barks").

So I'd say something like:

{la cityge'u poi ke'a cirko lo ka gercmo}.

I always use cirko2 as a property.

> I then move on into the book.  "Little Puppy likes to play, but loses
> toys every day."
>
> .i lo cmalu cityge'u goi ko'a cu nelci le nu kelci ku ku'i ri cirko le
> zilkei ti'u le ro djedi
>
> My question here (outside of hoping that I got it right), is "zilkei".
> I understand it as a lujvo (zi'o kelci).  What I don't understand is why
> that would be chosen over something like selkei (se kelci).  Can anyone
> explain this choice?

I find most zil- lujvo quite ugly. I wouldn't use {zilkei}, but I 
wouldn't usually use {selkei} in this situation either (and why not just 
use {se kelci} anyway?).

For "toy" I actually use {keldai} "plaything", while {kelci}'s x2 is 
much more broad and can include things like "playing catch", which isn't 
a toy at all, which is why I don't use {selkei} here. (another reason is 
that using {selkei} implies that someone is actually playing with it)

I would say something like:

{.i la cmalu cityge'u cu nelci lo nu kelci kei gi'e ku'i ta'e zvajuko lo 
keldai}

(or {... gi'e ku'i zvajuko lo keldai ca ro djedi})

You definitely need a {gi'e} in your sentence because otherwise you just 
have two sentences side by side, which is ungrammatical (your sentence 
has two selbri, for example). {ku'i} by itself does not start a new 
sentence, because it's grammatically identical to an attitudinal like {ui}.

mi'e la selpa'i mu'o

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