| Lojban For Beginners — velcli befi la lojban. bei loi co'a cilre | ||
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| Prev | Chapter 5. Times, days, dates (and abstractions) | Next |
If "Ten o'clock is the time that I go" sounds backwards, there are two ways you can switch it round. One is using se, which swaps the first and second places of any bridi.
means exactly the same thing as la daucac. tcika lenu mi klama. se coincidentally is pretty much the same as Spanish se, but is actually part of a series along with te, ve and xe, which switch around the first and third, first and fourth, and first and fifth places of a selbri. (This kind of swapping is known as conversion.) te, ve and xe aren't used so much in sentences as se, but are often used in making lujvo (compound words), as we'll see later in the course.le nu mi klama cu se tcika la daucac.
This conversion business, of course, doesn't apply just to sentences with abstractions in them, but to any bridi. You may want to change things around for different emphasis (people tend to mention the more important things in a sentence first), or as above, to work around the complexity of Lojban grammar (cu is a very powerful tool.) So the following pairs mean the same thing:
mi viska do
I see you
do se viska mi
You are seen by me
le nanmu cu klama lo barja
The man goes to a bar
lo barja cu se klama le nanmu
A bar is gone to by the man
la spot. mlatu la .abisinian.
Spot is a feline of the breed Abyssinian
la .abisinian. se mlatu la spot.
Abyssinian is the breed of cat Spot is
lenu mi cilre fi la lojban. cu xamgu mi
My learning Lojban is good for me
mi se xamgu lenu mi cilre fi la lojban
I am benefitted by my learning Lojban
| Exercise 3 |
Rearrange these Lojban sentences so that the main selbri in each sentence is converted to having se. Don't forget to use cu if you need to! For example, mi viska do → do se viska mi
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