[lojban-beginners] Re: Translation

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On 10/31/05, Naomi K <alien.juxtaposition@gmail.com> wrote:
> Question 1 - Being the eternal Futurama fan I am, I randomly felt like
> translating Bender's statement in "Fry and the Slurm Factory" - "Everyone
> was doing it, I just wanted to be popular"
>
> does {loi ro prenu cu zukte ta .iki'abo mi djica lenu mi selju'i} suffice?
>
> The mass of every person was acting that thing, causing motive the event I
> want to be the center of attention

I don't know what "it" was but {loi} says they were all doing it together,
for example if they were all building a house together. If it's something
each of them was doing on their own, say wearing a red shirt, then
you want {ro prenu}, which is distributive. {lo ro prenu} would be the
neutral form which works for both cases.

{ta} is meant to refer to something you can point to, an object, a place,
even an event but one that is going on there by the audience. {ti} for
something close to the speaker, and {tu} for something away both
from the speaker and the audience. {loi ro prenu cu zukte ta} says
something like "everyone is/was doing what you're doing" or
"everyone is/was doing what's going on near you".

If "it" referes to something they were discussing rather than
something actually present that can be pointed to, then you probably
want {la'e di'u}.

{i ki'u bo} means "because", it introduces a reason for the previous
sentence. My wanting to be popular is the reason that everyone
was doing it, or is it a reason for me doing it along with everyone
else?

> I don't know about {selju'i} because the x2 place of jundi is supposed to be
> an object or affair, and I don't think that 'yourself' counts as it?

I don't have a problem with people being selju'i, but I'm not sure
it's quite the same as being popular. {misno} could work for one
sense of "popular", but probably not the one wanted here either.
Maybe something like {jikselsi'a} "socially-esteemed"?

> Question 2 - Is there some sort of quick tutorial available on how to use
> the Lojban wiki? I found myself going around in circles XP

The problem is that the current wiki is the result of a merge of the
old wiki and the old lojban.org site, neither of which was itself
particularly easy to navigate. Think of it as a kind of adventure
game where you have to work your way through a maze to find
all the goodies. :)

mu'o mi'e xorxes