[lojban-beginners] Re: Translating sentence

[Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>]

On Thursday 23 October 2008 05:22:43 Jamie McCloskey wrote:
> Hi all,
> As an exercise, I have been translating the phrase "One of my teachers
> is obsessed with eating indoors" into Lojban. What I have come up with
> is this:
>
> pa le ctuca be mi cu nelci lenu le ri citka cu nenri
>
> My main queries about this are:
> * Is there a more accurate Lojban word for "obsessed" than "nelci"?
> * Is the "ri" referring back to the right thing(i.e. one of my
> teachers)?
> * Am I using the correct numerical article to refer to all of my
> teachers?

{le ctuca} is right, but I'd say {lo nu citka}, since you're not talking about 
particular events of eating.

> * Is there anything else I am doing wrong, or can do more elegantly?

The subordinate clause means "his eater is inside". I would say {pa ctuca be 
mi cu nelci lo nu nenri citka}, except that the proper word for "obsess" 
should substitute for {nelci}.

Pierre