Coi.

[Edward <thedward@MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU>]

Hello, I am trying to teach myself lojban.

I've been trying to construct some simple sentences and have
a few questions.

For example, I would like to say:

  I am teaching myself lojban.

I look in the searchable gismu list and come up with:

ctuca [ ctu ] teach
     x1 teaches audience x2 ideas/methods/lore x3 (du'u) about subject(s)
     x4 by method x5 (event)  [also instruct, instructor, educate,
     educator, teacher, professor, pedagogue; (adjective:) x1/x5 is
     pedagogical]; (cf. ckule, cilre, tadni)

I don't really know what to put in x3. I can say:

  mi mi ctuca zo'e la lojban.

Would it be appropriate to put what I want to learn regarding lojban
(tavla,tcidu,ciska ) in place x3? If so, what would I do to the brivla
to make it fit into the x3 place? justing adding 'le' seems to be
the wrong thing. Am I just going at this from entirely the wrong angle?

Imagining that the "du'u" might be a clue, I went on to look up "du'u":

du'u [ dum ] bridi abstract
     abstractor: predication/bridi abstractor; x1 is predication [bridi]
     expressed in sentence x2
     (cf. mintu, dunli)

To be honest, this leaves me somewhat less than enlightened on how to fill
x3 of 'ctuca'. Could I just insert "le du'u tavla" into x3?

  mi mi ctuca le du'u tavla ku la lojban.

Does that make any sense? Does it say what I intend?
Would another abstractor be more appropriate?

Thank you very much in advance for any help and enlightenment.


--
the Edward
thedward@mail.utexas.edu