From pycyn@aol.com Fri May 05 10:03:32 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 22959 invoked from network); 5 May 2000 17:03:32 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by m4.onelist.org with QMQP; 5 May 2000 17:03:32 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO imo-d07.mx.aol.com) (205.188.157.39) by mta1 with SMTP; 5 May 2000 17:03:32 -0000 Received: from Pycyn@aol.com by imo-d07.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v26.7.) id a.62.31e11b7 (4368) for ; Fri, 5 May 2000 13:03:28 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <62.31e11b7.264458e0@aol.com> Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 13:03:28 EDT Subject: Re: [lojban] Intro and questions To: lojban@egroups.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 4.0 for Windows sub 33 From: pycyn@aol.com X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 2537 In a message dated 5/4/00 8:11:57 PM CST, taral@taral.net writes: <<.i mi cilre fi la lojban. i .e'o ro ko fraxu mi le se srera (I'm still learning lojban. Please forgive my mistakes.) What is the best way to express the English 'still' part of that? >> Which "still" do you want? I suppose you mean minimally that you did a little learning in the past and are doing some now, no comments about completing the task though some hint of going on. Or maybe that does play a role and you are saying you have started and have not yet quit. Maybe even are at it now, as you seem to be. Or, as Robin, in the quote after means, you have gone on at it much longer than might reasonably be expected. 1. mi pujeca cilre la lojban ca'o 2. mi pujenaico'u ... or is it pujeco'unai 3. mi za'o cilre... I suspect you just want ca'o for now. << .i la'e zoi gy. counterfactuals .gy mo (What are counterfactuals?)>> Sentences that contain references to situations known or believed not to obtain, typically, in English, "if , then" with subjunctives: "If I were inventing English, I would leave the damned things out" They have various functions that get glopped together in English. <> For starters, mi na prane, but that may be too strong. Indefinitely, mi na'e prane, but that misses the "far from" too. So maybe mi no'e prane, though neutral doesn't seem to fit the scale of perfection -- unless it means "about as far along as most" Other possibilities go to tanru: traji na'e prane or, depending on what exactly you mean, mutce na'e prane, milxe na'e prane. I don't think ze'u (or zu, though it does make sense about learning lojban) will do.