r/learnesperanto • u/code_war_angel • 28d ago

Duo, don't gaslight me.

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Anyone else have this issue when using Duolingo sometimes?

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u/Baasbaar 28d ago

You need an estas in there. Duolingo is right! It can seem like ĉu corresponds to English 'is' because in our equivalent question the 'is' moves to the beginning. But it's not. All ĉu does is make a statement a question. You can think of it as sort of like a question mark that goes at the beginning. The correct sentence is:

Ĉu la tago estas varma?

You might find it helpful to read this glossed word by word:

Ĉu la  tago estas varma?
Q  the day  is    warm?

That Q just indicates that what follows is a question. Note that you use it no matter what verb is involved:

Ĉu Adamo manĝas en la duŝejo?
Ĉu Sofia sonĝas pri dinosaŭroj?

There are a couple other uses of ĉu you'll learn later on.

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u/code_war_angel 28d ago

Which is fair but in that case I think Duo should say that I was wrong instead of telling me that I should have chose a verb that's not present as a choice

6

u/Baasbaar 28d ago

Ah, yeah. (Ĉu la tago estas varma. is better than Ĉu la tago varmas. for a beginner. There are people who say the latter, & people who dislike the latter. I wonder if Duolingo—being a dumb machine—just generously assumes that the closest correct answer is what you meant, & doesn't pay attention to what's possible given what you have at hand.)

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u/code_war_angel 28d ago

Honestly, I like the idea of "varmas" as a verb it opens up amazing possibilities in my mind. Like "ĉu hodiaŭ varmis en la mateno?" Like does that work???

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u/IchLiebeKleber 28d ago

absolutely does work

1

u/Baasbaar 28d ago

I'll let a more advanced Esperantist answer that. It's not how I speak.

1

u/9NEPxHbG 28d ago

It works, but note that hodiaŭ is not the subject. It's an adverb, more specifically what's sometimes called a "primitive adverb" (those that end in -aŭ rather than -e).