jan Ari Pota en kiwen pi jan sona

[janKipo]

maybe ' pilin kin .... li ike pali ...' Not "harder" to be sure, but at least "difficult". Time really needs some work. We keep using only 'kama' and 'pini' and 'tenpo'. I think we need 'awen'. too. and maybe 'monsi' and 'sinpin' and 'insa', but that takes some programming. For now, 'suno sewi pini' maybe or (looking ahead) 'tenpo pi awen anpa suno' or so. Or a sentential one; 'suno li awen anpa la.

It seems to me to be an open question about commas and 'la'. Common sense (mine, admittedly) put them after, if at all (and I favor not), but sonja seems to put them before. As I said, just leave them out. There are plenty of places where commas might help, but 'la' is (usually) not one of them.

'lupa tawa' for "door" is pretty good, but not settled. It is largely a context problem in that I am often not sure where we are -- in a building or on the street say, so I don't quite know what to expect to see. 'selo' for "outside" is getting to be standard but still feels odd.

'poka' for "almost" is still unsettling. Are we shooting here for "almost sat/lay"? "sat" is usually 'anpa e monsi" so "lay" looks more natural. 'open taso anpa' "just started to lower"? 'anpa open pi pini ala' doesn't parse easily "lowered in the manner of the beginning of not ending"

Why 'pi' after 'nimi'? Is this not exactly what he said? What kind of "I'm sorry" is this to be? The given one is a confession of failure. 'ike mi' is an admission of misdeed. Perhaps 'o toki sin' if he did not understand the first time. And so on. The Brits tend to use it like American "Excuse me", even for "Let me through" . I assume tp just says what is meant really.

'pini tawa' "finished (or, alas, stopped) going" 'kin' might help.

"This man made Mr. Dursley feel good using his hands on the bodily circle and went away." or maybe actually 'pilin pona' i.e., felt well' so "patted him" but then what is the bodily circle; one expects something for "back" or so.

'sina sona seme' seems to be a tp favorite pattern, though 'sina sama seme' is even better.

[janChowlett]

Thanks for the pointers on difficulty and time - I hadn't noticed "awen" as a pre-verb meaning exactly "continuing, ongoing". Just what I needed! So we've reached: "tenpo pi awen anpa suno la pilin kin pi ijo pi ilo lupa li ike pali tawa mije Taseli."

I'll acknowledge the context issue. Obviously the text should stand on its own, but I'm still a little way off that, and we're also working in small chunks which doesn't help with continuous understanding. At the moment, Mr Dursley has been in his office ("lon tomo pali"), and is leaving ("ona li tawa weka tan tomo").

The "almost" here is in the context of "stumbled and almost fell", which I'm more than willing to render just into "almost fell over" (because, in the previous line, Mr Dursley physically walked into him).

You know, I actually hadn't realised the dialect difference between British and American in the use of "sorry" here! ('"Sorry,' [Mr Dursley] grunted, as the tiny old man stumbled and almost fell"). In British English, this should be an admission of fault, an apology for harm caused. Of course actually it's nothing of the sort, especially from Mr Dursley, and especially just as "Sorry" rather than a fully articulated "I'm sorry" - it's just a Pavlovian response; the correct thing to say when you've bumped someone. I take it this would be an American "Excuse me"? "mi pakala" as an expression of failure sounds almost right in any case; perhaps not quite since there's no failure, rather harm caused inadvertently.

I like "pini tawa kin" for "has gone at last".

The, uh, feeling up of Mr Dursley is not going so well . I'm looking for a hug - specifically "hugged Mr Dursley around the middle". I reckoned that a hug was a feeling in a good way, hence "pilin pona". I added the "sijelo" to emphasise the bodily contact/location, but it's plainly not working...

I'll carry on later this week, I hope. The next few sentences are going to need more hugging, so it'd be best to sort that out first!

[janKipo]

Oh, what tangled webs we weave and all. I don't know how to set things up better, but I may be forgetting much of what went before. Do we know, for example, what Mr. Dursley actually does and why he would be thinking about drills?
For "hug Mr Dursley about the waist" maybe "luka e mije Taseli lon sike insa'

[janChowlett]

We do. Going back to the first chunk of text: mije Taseli li lawa e kulupu Kalanin. kulupu Kalanin li pali e ilo pi lupa pali.

Thanks for the hug. As it were.

[janChowlett]

I'm going to batter ahead for one more paragraph, because I'm not going to have any other chance this week. I'll tidy up next week, with luck.

mije Taseli li awen. jan pi ona sona ala li pini luka e mije Taseli. ona li pilin e ni: jan ni li nimi e mije Taseli kepeken nimi 'Mukele'. mije Taseli li sona ala e ni: jan Mukele li seme? ona li ike pilin. ona li tawa wawa lon tawa tomo sama li tawa lon tomo sama. ona li wile e ni: ona li lukin e ijo pi lon ala. tenpo pini ala la ona li wile e ni. ona li pilin ike e ni: jan li lukin e ijo pi lon ala.

Quite a short bit, so not much to say. I'm quite pleased with "lukin e ijo pi lon ala", so I hope it works - it's a use of "lon" I've not had to do before. I had a problem with the last phrase, which is originally "because he didn't approve of imagination". Now, "...because he didn't approve of food", say, would be easy: '...tan ni: moku li ike tawa ona'. But here, instead of "moku", I need "imagination". I've just rendered that as "seeing things that aren't there", but that's a noun phrase consisting of a transitive verb with no subject. I presume I can't just have '...tan ni: lukin e ijo pi lon ala li ike tawa ona"?

Incidentally, I'm now 5 pages in. To an 18-page chapter. Eesh.

[janKipo]

The little piece 'jan sin li kama tawa lipu pi toki pona' (or so) has some good advice about big books (he starts with "War and Peace" but cuts back to Dao De Jing).

[janKipo]

You can't have 'e' in a noun phrase, so have to use 'pi' instead. and, of course, the tp solution is to use two sentences: 'ona li lukin e ijo ni: ona li lon ala.'

"Mr. Dursley went on. The man of the unknowing him (not quite what it says, but everything else is really tangled. I suppose you mean "the unknown man") stopped holding Mr. Dursley. He thinks that the man called Mr. Dursley "Muggles". Mr. Dursley does not know who Muggles is. He feels bad. He moves rapidly on (not sure why this is here) toward his home and goes to his home. He wants to see (missing 'ala'?) nonexistent things. Not later (or "not earlier"? new construction to me) he wants this. He thinks badly that people see non-existent things."
Ahah! jan li lukin e ijo pi lon ala la ona li ike tawa mije Taseli'.
Good middle, else bad muddle. I don't see good ways out at the moment.

[janChowlett]

Oh dear. More work and care needed, then.

ken la sina open ante toki e lipu pi pona pali.

Yes, perhaps I should. Maybe I should raid my 5-year-old's bookshelf! But I feel kinda committed to jan Ari Pota now...

However, that particular use of "la" (as 'in the context of <sentence>, this', working to make a complex noun-phrase as a subject) I hadn't picked up on before, and it may help fix a few things. I would just like to register my mild disbelief that "awen" - given by jan Pije as meaning "to wait, to pause, to stay; remaining" - can mean "to go on". Although I think I can rewrite that sentence to be more emphatic anyway. Finally, I goofed in writing "tawa tomo" when I meant "tomo tawa".

Ok, retry:

mije Taseli li tawa ala. ona li sona ala e jan ni. taso tenpo pini la jan ni li luka e mije Taseli. mije Taseli li pilin e ni: jan ni li nimi e mije Taseli kepeken nimi 'Mukele'. mije Taseli li sona ala e ni: jan Mukele li seme? ona li ike pilin. ona li tawa wawa lon tomo tawa sama li tawa lon tomo sama. ona li wile e ni: tenpo pini la ona li lukin e ijo pi lon ala. tenpo pini ali la ona li wile ala e ni. jan li lukin e ijo pi lon ala la ona li ike tawa mije Taseli.

Any better?

[janKipo]

Smooth. The only place I slowed down was 'ona li wile e ni: tenpo pini la ona li lukin e ijo pi lon ala. tenpo pini ali la ona li wile ala e ni.' "He wished that he had seen non-existent things.He had always wanted that." Surely 'lukin ala'.
I don't know how much of the ease in reading tis is due to all the discussion before, but I really think it is inherent in thr final form. Nice.

[janChowlett]

Hurrah! That is an improvement then.

In the bit you stumbled over, I believe you've missed an "ala" in the last sentence: - "He wished that he had seen non-existent things. At all previous times, he had not wanted that." Idiomatically, "he had never wanted that before". (Previously, it was "ona li wile e ni: ona li lukin e ijo pi lon ala. tenpo pini ala la ona li wile e ni." - "He wished that he had seen non-existent things. At no previous time, he had wanted that." - but that had caused confusion).

The point is that Mr Dursley "hoped he was imagining things, which he had never hoped before".