tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Dec 30 12:44:16 1997
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Re: KLBC -- jIlIHegh (extreme beginner)
In article <[email protected]>,
"William H. Martin" <[email protected]> writes
>> ghomvamDaq jIchu'. DaHjaj jIHvaD TKD
>> nobpu' loDnI'wIj.
>
>valqu'ba' loDnI'lIj. All this is fine with one little comment.
>{-pu'} does not mean past tense. It means perfective aspect.
>Your English translation says, "...my brother gave me...".
>That's simple past tense. Klingon doesn't have tense, so past
>tense is simply figured out from context. You set the time
>context with {DaHjaj} and considering how well you've done up to
>this point, we'd have to assume it was earlier today that you
>got your TKD.
>
>As written in Klingon, it would translate: "Today, my brother
>has given me TKD," or "Today, my brother had given me TKD," or
>even "Today, my brother will have given me TKD." None of this
>matches what you apparently intended, so you probably want to
>omit {-pu'} here.
Can I just add that I would have thought that it should have been
*loDnI'wI'* unless you really dislike your brother and consider him
inferior to you. Knowing what brotherly love is like, though, it might
have been intentional ;)
Very minor but as charghwI' says, if you are at this standard already,
*I* want to kill you.
qaHoH vIneH.
--
tlhIbwI'