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From: Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>
To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org
Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: Yitzik asks his first questions
Date: Mon, 26 May 2008 13:26:34 -0400
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On Monday 26 May 2008 09:35, Isaac Penzev wrote:
> > "lo birje" would work just as well
>
> My mother tongue (Russian) lacks articles, therefore I feel sometimes
> confused with regards to their correct usage, inspite of my 32 years of
> learning English. Do you mean {lo botpi be *lo* birje}, or a mere {lo
> birje} instead of the whole phrase?

I mean {lo botpi be lo birje} peseba'i {lo botpi be loi birje}. And don't 
worry about Russian lacking articles. Lojban articles are quite different 
from English, French, or Spanish articles, so you'll be no more confused than 
the rest of us.

Lojban has no grammatical number, nor mass/count distinction in the noun (and 
{birje} isn't a noun anyway). It does have mass/count distinction in the 
articles (including the one used with nouns). So if you have a 600 ml bottle 
of beer:
lo birje = пиво
loi birje = пиво
.i lo birje cu milylitce li 600 .i loi bijre ku ji'a milylitce li 600.
But if you have a six-pack,
lo birje = пива
loi birje = пиво
.i lo birje cu milylitce li 600 .iku'i loi birje cu milylitce li 3600.

For "upon", how about {ne'aga'u}?

mu'omi'e .pier.