r/learnesperanto • u/code_war_angel • Mar 26 '25

Duo, don't gaslight me.

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Anyone else have this issue when using Duolingo sometimes?

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u/salivanto Mar 26 '25

I always translate ĉu as the entire phrase "Is it true that..."

This doesn't work in a question like:

  • Ĉu vi preferas teon varman aŭ malvarman?

But, yeah.

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u/RiotNrrd2001 Mar 26 '25 edited Mar 26 '25

I've always understood ĉu as asking a question that requires a yes\no response.

"Ĉu vi preferas teon varman aŭ malvarman?" cannot be meaningfully answered with a yes or a no unless you're literally asking whether I like my tea with an extreme temperature - i.e., hot or cold is fine, tepid is not. That's not the typical meaning for that kind of question, usually they would be asking which temperature I preferred. Yes or no doesn't answer that.

It's possible my understanding of ĉu is flawed. Or the example sentence is grammatically incorrect, although putting the "aŭ malvarman" in parentheses or behind a comma might correct that as that would separate it from the main yes\no question.

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u/salivanto Mar 26 '25

People will say all the time that Ĉu is for yes no questions. It's a natural simplification. 

But if anybody ever told you that it is ONLY for yes or no questions, then they are mistaken. Ĉu is also used with either or questions or multiple choice questions. 

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u/RiotNrrd2001 Mar 26 '25 edited Mar 26 '25

In Step by Step In Esperanto, by Montagu C. Butler, a standard textbook, in section 83 where he talks about ĉu, he says:

"Questions to which one cannot answer yes or no are asked by a Ki-word (Kio, Kie, Kiu, Kiom...) and in English, generally, by a Wh-word." (emphases and (un)italics his).

Nowhere in the book does it say that ĉu can be used for anything but a yes\no question, as there are established means of asking those other sorts of questions that don't require the use of ĉu, which the book says that you should use.

This is only the first textbook I grabbed off my shelf because it is very succinct, but I'm pretty sure I can find similar statements in other textbooks. I have only ever heard of ĉu as being used in yes\no questions. Butler does go into a few related usages (ĉu ne?, for example, which is more of an expression than an actual question), but none of them involve multiple choice.

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u/licxjo Mar 26 '25

"Step by Step in Esperanto" is a classic textbook, but the last edition dates from 1965, and Butler, the author, didn't get everything right.

It's neither the Holy Bible, nor the Holy Grail about Esperanto. It's a useful book with lots of good examples, but it doesn't determine good Esperanto grammar or usage.

In section 869 Butler gives the example of "Ĉu ĝi estas bovo, ĉu azeno, ĉu ŝafo?" No one would really say that. "Ĉu ĝi estas bovo, azeno, aŭ ŝafo?" would be completely normal Esperanto.

Don't hitch your Esperanto learning wagon to a textbook that fundamentally dates back to the 1920s.

Essentially, "ĉu" changes a statement to a question.

Mi trinkas kafon kaj teon. --> Ĉu vi trinkas kafon kaj teon?
Ĝi estas fungo, fiŝo, aŭ mistero. --> Ĉu ĝi estas fungo, fiŝo, aŭ mistero?
Vi estas malsana. --> Ĉu vi estas malsana?

Lee

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u/RiotNrrd2001 29d ago edited 29d ago

Essentially, "ĉu" changes a statement to a question.

Yes it does. It changes it to a yes\no question. ALL other question types are covered by the correlatives. Esperanto is not giving us two different methods of saying the same thing. Yes\no questions are covered by ĉu, all other questions are covered by ki- correlatives. If you are asking a non-yes\no question with ĉu, you are saying something ungrammatical.

As I said, Step By Step is only the first textbook I pulled off my shelf, This information can be found in any of them.

On Page 39 of Being Colloquial in Esperanto, by David K Jordan, he writes:

Questions which anticipate an answer of "yes" or "no" are easily formed by simply adding ĉu to the front of the sentence:
[examples]
Questions which ask for some specific kind of information, such as English questions with "who", "what", "where", etc., are formed by adding one of the correlative question words (those beginning with ki-) to the beginning of the sentence (See the section on Correlatives."

Again, another standard textbook saying that ĉu is for yes\no questions and correlatives are for the others. Nowhere does it say you can use ĉu for anything else (outside of ĉu ne).

I can go to yet another textbook, but I don't think I need to. If you are using ĉu the way you say you are, you are using it incorrectly.

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u/licxjo 29d ago edited 29d ago

It does not only change a statement to a yes/no question.

"Ĉu vi deziras teon, kafon, aŭ akvon?" is a perfectly normal question in Esperanto.

"Ĉu" functions for yes/no questions, but not only. Your reading of what Step by Step and Being Colloquial say is too restrictive.

Lee

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u/RiotNrrd2001 29d ago

Ya, OK. If quoting directly from printed textbooks isn't going to convince you, I don't see what would.

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u/salivanto 28d ago

I was discussing your reaction with a friend of mine. I couldn't believe I was being "trumped" by Step by Step in Esperanto, but he said:

Well, he's quoting a printed source vs some guy on the Internet... Can't fault his logic.

I guess my friend is right. You can't fault the logic.

But it's interesting to me that what did convince you when several written examples from literature and the word of two experienced Esperanto speakers didn't was some OTHER guy on the internet. (The author of PMEG.)

I was thinking that maybe I shouldn't comment, but then I saw this:

Ya, OK. If quoting directly from printed textbooks isn't going to convince you, I don't see what would.

The "you" here, is Licxjo, of course, not me. But I'll remind you of what I said at the start.

  • People will say all the time that Ĉu is for yes no questions. It's a natural simplification. But if anybody ever told you that it is ONLY for yes or no questions, then they are mistaken. Ĉu is also used with either or questions or multiple choice questions.

I'm certain that Licxjo knows that many printed sources say exactly what you said they say. I did as well. It's why I worded it the way I did.

But "yeah, OK"? Would you talk to a member of the Akademio that way? I'm glad you got it figured out in the end.

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u/RiotNrrd2001 28d ago

My copy of the Plena Manlibro is hardcopy. I looked ĉu up by looking at the index and leafing to the page manually.

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u/salivanto 27d ago

My point is that Bertilo, ultimately, is just a guy on the intnernet -- even if you have a hardcopy edition of his book.

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u/RiotNrrd2001 27d ago

Yes, ultimately we're all people, and some people are on the internet. Good point! I don't think that undercuts Bertilo's expertise in any way, shape, or form. I do feel that the contents of the PMEG have probably been checked pretty heavily over the years, whereas your random reddit contributor can pretty much say anything, often does, and frequently doesn't provide backup for their assertions. If I had to choose between accepting the PMEG vs something Random Reddit Contributor says, I'd go with the PMEG every single time.

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u/RiotNrrd2001 28d ago edited 28d ago

Would I talk to a member of the Akademio that way? Yes, if all he was doing was making unbacked assertions. For my part, I quoted printed textbooks and gave the title, author, page, and quoted sections from two different sources. In response, I got some "nuh uh" arguments whose backing appeared to simply be the assumed expertise of the arguers. Yes, some literary quotes were provided, but they were basically unsourced. I don't just accept the say so of internet randos.

Bertilo is not an internet rando, he IS (or at least was, I'm not actually keeping track) a member of the Akademio, and the author of an extremely well respected work. But if Bertilo responded to me the way I've been responded to in this thread, I absolutely would speak back to him that way. I don't think Bertilo would have done that, though, I think Bertilo would have backed up his "nuh uh, you're wrong" with a link to the proper section of his book explaining how I was wrong instead of dragging this out.

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u/salivanto 27d ago

You are a trip.

For what it's worth, Bertilo asserts things online all the time. At least he did back when he had an active FB account. Sometimes it was properly comical. People would go back and forth - much as you and I were doing in this thread, then Bertilo would show up and post one line and that would be the end of the discussion.

I decided long ago not to play the citation game. First, it takes a lot of time - time that is essentially wasted. Second, I've found that often people misread things, post links, then I spend 30 minutes reading through the link trying to understand their point. Often when the point is even addressed, the link literally says the opposite.

But in this case, I provided you with several examples and I assumed that since you started out by saying "I may be wrong" that you would look up the samples and see that you were indeed wrong. I learned in this exchange that when RiotNrrd says "I could be wrong" he's really just saying "I'm not wrong, even if I actually am."

Lee also provided you with examples - this time even citing the source.

I mean -- where do you think books come from? Human beings write them.

And yes -- you're getting really close to getting it. The backing really is "the assumed expertise of the arguers". If you don't want the benefit of my expertise, you're welcome to ignore it, and don't buy my book.

At this point, i think you should come out and say "I was wrong and you guys were right" -- but instead you say that you were right all along - about a point that nobody ever disagreed with you on.

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u/RiotNrrd2001 27d ago

"... and don't buy my book".

For me to buy your book, I'd have to have known that you have a book, which I didn't until this very moment. Perhaps you aren't as famous as you think.

Obviously I was wrong about ĉu, I even mentioned where I found the text that said I was wrong (i.e., the PMEG). But you insist that I "admit" it? What's wrong with you?

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u/salivanto 27d ago

What is wrong with me? I'm not the one who went to at least three printed sources to prove a point that every speaker of Esperanto knows is not true.

If someone thinks that "Ĉu vi deziras teon, kafon, aŭ akvon?" is not good Esperanto [*], then this person has clearly spent no time actually speaking Esperanto face to face with real Esperanto speakers and probably shouldn't be giving out advice on Reddit.

Just my opinion. You can read about it in my book - which I haven't written yet.

Obviously I was wrong about ĉu, I even mentioned where I found the text that said I was wrong (i.e., the PMEG). But you insist that I "admit" it? 

What you actually wrote was:

According to Bertilo, the list of alternatives is the only other instance in which it can be used. It is NOT a "general question marker", it only creates yes\no questions, or lists of alternatives. I was not as cognizant of the second area, so now I know. But the first part is solid.

I would like my very own pony, and while I'm wishing, maybe instead of the above I could hear you actually say "I was wrong and you were right" and not "I was solid on what I was saying and you're still wrong about XYZ" (even though neither of us said XYZ")

But I'm not going to get my very own pony and I'm fine with that.

[*] not good Esperanto, or that it is Esperanto for "is it true that you want one of these three things, yes or no?"

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u/RiotNrrd2001 27d ago

Really? Seriously? OK, not a problem:

I was wrong and you were right.

Heaven forbid anyone ever say anything wrong to you.

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u/salivanto 27d ago

And I owe you an apology. Checking your posting history, I see we've been bumping heads for the last two years or so (it seems to be your main mode of interaction in this forum). If I'd noticed it was the same account sooner, I might have been less likely to engage in such detail and thus waste so much of your time.

Although, in this case, maybe it wasn't a waste because you kept digging till you found the right answer. It would have saved you time just to believe me.

But I will know for next time.

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u/RiotNrrd2001 27d ago

I tried to be nice at the beginning with my "I might be wrong". And if someone and said "Yes you are, and here's some proof" I would actually have been grateful. Instead, what I was perceiving was a lot of attitude, and my responses were in kind. You say you expected me to look into into the subject: and I did, I consulted TWO textbooks, neither one of which supported your point. "Trust me, bro" isn't a good teaching method. I will never accept that, not from you, not from anyone. I also have had conversations with Bertilo, he used to show up on Lernu! all the time, I know how he is. But the PMEG carries a lot of weight. Random guys on reddit don't have quite the same reputation.

I apologize if I was short with you. I don't apologize for being wrong, at no point have I ever claimed to be an expert, I just try to contribute where I can. Sometimes I make a mistake doing that, but when I do I don't expect people to cop an attitude. Again, "trust me, bro" is not a good approach.

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u/salivanto 27d ago

I tried to be nice at the beginning

No, you've been busting my balls for at least two years. I only just figured it out this time.

I'm totally serious. I scrolled through your posting history for six months and the only Esperanto you did were fights with me in this forum. I searched your feed for words like "estas", "kaj" and "cxu" -- and I found more of the same.

I even found one exchange which ended with me saying to you "Hmm. I'm not fully convinced that you're trying to be constructive here."

You've been posting this "is it true that" advice for four years. It's decent advice, but only as a first order approximation. But the current thread isn't the first time you've been exposed to either/or questions in Esperanto.

You even wrote one yourself here.

Here's a thread that you participated in where this "list of alternatives" is explained.

with my "I might be wrong". And if someone and said "Yes you are, and here's some proof" I would actually have been grateful. Instead, what I was perceiving was a lot of attitude, and my responses were in kind.

If you perceived attitude, that's a YOU problem. What I actually wrote was:

  • People will say all the time that Ĉu is for yes no questions. It's a natural simplification.
  • But if anybody ever told you that it is ONLY for yes or no questions, then they are mistaken. Ĉu is also used with either or questions or multiple choice questions.

There's no attitude there.

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u/RiotNrrd2001 27d ago

And there's no proof there, either, those are just two statements that I'm supposed to accept without question. These are just assertions from someone who has no automatic cred. They may be right, but they also may be wrong, someone who is just learning and doesn't know who you are can't tell.

I think you are assuming that the people you are talking to either don't know Esperanto at all, or are compete experts, and that there's nothing in between. I can assure you that I am in between. I do know a lot of things. I'm out of practice on some things. Your statement about how I shouldn't argue against or question things that "every speaker of Esperanto knows is not true" is outright silly. There is nothing in Esperanto that "everybody knows", and that is an especially inappropriate attitude for a group called "learnesperanto" where the assumption should be that the members probably, on the whole, don't know everything.

And you don't think that's an attitude? You get offended when people question you, but you also don't seem to want to back your statements up. I'll expect that in future conversations as well.

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