Re: [lojban] Lojban, Pimsleur-style (Unit 1)

[Daniel Lyons <fusion@storytotell.org>]

On Sep 18, 2012, at 9:54 PM, Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu> wrote:

> On Monday, September 17, 2012 09:49:28 Daniel Lyons wrote:
>> coi rodo. I've been learning Lojban off-and-on for a while and would like to
>> contribute some Pimsleur-style audio lessons. Before recording, I want to
>> be sure my translations are correct. Please double check me:
>> 
>> "Excuse me"
>>  .u'u ju'i
>>  [sorry] [attention]
> 
> How about "ta'a do"?

That looks better to me. Thanks!

>> "Do you speak lojban?"
>>  ¿xu do tavla fo la lojban?
> 
> xu do se bangu la lojban?

I prefer the brevity of xu do se lojbau. Maybe include both and a little comparison? 

Early units in Pimsleur often spend a lot of time comparing what happens when addressing men versus women and making statements versus asking questions because most languages make distinctions there. Lojban doesn't have these complications. I'm inclined to respond by making the lessons shorter but the alternatives, such as including more supporting material or simply covering more material per lesson, should be considered.

>> "No."
>>  na go'i
>> 
>> "Yes, a little."
>>  cmalu go'i
> 
> I don't know what you get when you make a tanru with "go'i". "cmalu se bangu 
> be fa mi bei la lojban"? "mi cmalu se bangu la lojban"? 

I'm not really in a position to argue it, but I'll note respectfully that the reference grammar shows this:

tanru-unit-1 = tanru-unit-2 [linkargs]
tanru-unit-2 =
BRIVLA #
| GOhA [RAhO] #
| KE # selbri-3 /KEhE#/
| ME # sumti /MEhU#/ [MOI #] | (number
| lerfu-string) MOI #
| NUhA # mex-operator
| SE # tanru-unit-2
| JAI # [tag] tanru-unit-2
| any-word (ZEI any-word) ...
| NAhE # tanru-unit-2
| NU [NAI] # [joik-jek NU [NAI] #] ... subsentence /KEI#/

The presence of GOhA there suggests to me that "go'i" can appear in a tanru unit, and that the meaning would be exactly that suggested by the tanru algorithm in the book, so "milxe go'i" would mean "weak type-of (previous bridi)" or "yes, weakly," which seems (to me) like what would be implied in English by "a little."

> Anyway "milxe" is better. You could also say "ja'a ru'e go'i".

No disagreement there. Is "ru'e" important in that expression?

Thanks,

— 
Daniel Lyons



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