[lojban-beginners] Re: how to say "learn how to swear in Lojban"

[Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org>]

On Wed, Mar 02, 2005 at 08:07:42AM -0600, Scott Weller wrote:
> Matt Arnold wrote:
> 
> >I'm making a promotional poster for a Lojban event at a science
> >fiction convention, which I would like to be a bilingual
> >English/Lojban poster. I want to say (among other things) "learn
> >how to swear in Lojban." I tried {ko cilre fi lo zu'o mabla
> >sepi'o ma bau la lojban}. 
> 
> 
> Strictly speaking, I think, in the context of such a poster,
> "learn how to swear in Lojban" is not really a command.  

ko is not a "commond" in the strictest English sense of that word.
It is any form of request.

> Isn't it more of an abbreviation of "(If you come to this event
> you will) learn how to swear in Lojban"?

You could view it that way, but as an advertisement it is also
saying that it wants people to do so.

> Of course, I have *no* suggestion for how to express this in
> Lojban, so maybe I should just shut up <g>.

That's because Causals Are Hard.  Or at least hard to get used to.

Something like:

lo nu do vitke le nunpenmi cu rinka lo nu do binxo co kakne lo nu
malcku bau la .lojban.

As an aside, ka'erbi'o should probably be in jbovlaste, but I have
no idea how to gloss it in to English.

-Robin

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