jan Ari Pota en kiwen pi jan sona

[janKipo]

'sitelen ma' is standard for "map" but doesn't distinguish between various details 'sitelen pi nasin ma'?
Yes, 'sin' for "again" and "return" and the like. "Encore" is 'sin!'
Thought of tabbies but like tigers better for my story.
"think" is standardly 'pilin', though pu seem to leave all the verb uses out altogeher and des put "think" in 'toki' We get the [point, I suppose, in either case.
Still 'suno pi ante ali' (which I don't much care for as "opposite" but have no better suggestion) and I still don't get the mirror part: 'ilo pi lukin sin' at a first guess.
Signs tend to be 'sitelen' (well, street signs, anyhow) I don't quite see 'selo' getting into it.
'ona li utala e sama' That's what the reflexive pronoun is for.
So, at least three more vocab lessons today: 'la' , 'sama' and 'taso' Good ones to have.

[janChowlett]

Okay, so this is the same chunk as last time, rewritten to account for janKipo's markups.

lon pini nasin la ona li lukin e ijo nasa. ni li soweli pi linja uta. soweli ni li lukin e sitelen pi nasin ma. tenpo lili la mije Taseli li pilin ala e ijo pi lukin ona. ona li lukin sin. soweli li lon pini ni nasin Pipe. taso mije Taseli li lukin ala e sitelen pi nasin ma. ona li pilin e seme? sitelen pi nasin ma li lon suno ike. tenpo lili la mije Taseli li open ala e oko ona. ona li lukin wawa e soweli. soweli ni li lukin wawa kin e ona. mije Taseli li tawa weka la ona li lukin e soweli kepeken ilo pi lukin sin. soweli ni li lukin sitelen e sitelen nasin "nasin Pipe". ala kin! ona li lukin kin e sitelen nasin. soweli li ken ala lukin sitelen e sitelen pi nasin ma e sitelen nasin. mije Taseli li utala lili e sama li pini pilin e ijo soweli. ona li tawa ma tomo la ona li pilin e ijo pi lawa suli taso pi ilo lupa. ona li wile jo e lawa ni lon tenpo suno ni.

From your last-but-one post, I don't understand your last comment "(could have skipped the 'ni' and gone straight to the tool order)" - while I can see that I could have "ona li wile jo e <tool order> lon tenpo suno sama", I can't see how I could do that as well as having it in the previous "only thought about" sentence. Or were you referring to the fact I had an unnecessary 'ni' in that sentence?

Also, I don't think I need it here, but I will in about half a chapter... with tp's zero-copula, where should "kin" go to say (eg) "the cat was still at the end of the road"? I assume it's either "soweli li lon pilin nasin kin" or "soweli li lon kin pilin nasin", or "soweli li kin lon pilin nasin", but I can't figure out which. I guess I'm unclear whether "lon" is the verb, whether the verb is elided (zero-copula - there's no "to be"), or whether "lon <place>" combined is the verb.

For that matter, in "the cat was still there", would "there" be "lon sama" or "lon sama ma"?

[janKipo]

'ken ala lukin sitelen' , no 'pi' , 'lukin sitelen' is just an infinitive with a modal, not a modifier.
'pilin e ijo soweli' "think about the critter", not "feel the critter"
'ona li pilin e ijo pi lawa suli taso pi ilo lupa. ona li wile jo e lawa ni lon tenpo suno ni' or some such.
Is 'kin' the word we want for "still'? I guess so, in its role as added information, here a new time rather than a new participant or activity. So, for purity sake I would do 'lon tenpo ni kin'. But that seems excessive even to me. (ni li namako, tawa mi kin). So, my second, practical choice, would be after 'lon'. And, as soon as I say that, I see that the real answer is 'soweli li awen lon ...' "The cat remained at the end of the road" 'li kin' is grammatically out of the running in this context. And 'pini nasin kin' suggests it was formerly somewhere else, rather than remaining there. For that matter, so does 'lon kin'.
Talking about missing or zero- copulas in tp is just misleading. Copulas are a peculiarity of some I-E languages and a few others but not normal for languages as a whole. You only miss them in contrast with English, where they are abused frequently to move stuff around away from where it belongs (logically, deep structurally, etc.), 'lon' is a perfectly good predicate/verb as it stands, lacking nothing and needing nothing. English needs a crutch, but that is its problem.
I would say 'soweli li awen lon ni' "still there"

[janChowlett]

taso lon selo ma tomo la ona li pini pilin e ijo ilo lupa tan ijo ante. ona li awen lon linja pi tawa tomo pi tenpo suno la lukin e jan mute pi len nasa. jan li len e len selo suli. jan pi len nasa li ike tawa mije Taseli. jan pi suli lili li len nasa lon tenpo ni! ona li pilin e ni: len ni li len pona tawa jan mute pi nasa sin. mije Taseli li utala lili e sike lawa pi tawa tomo kepeken luka ona li lukin e kulupu pi jan nasa ni lon poka. ona li toki pi kalama lili pi pilin sewi. mije Taseli li pilin utala e ni: jan ni tu li lili ala. tenpo lili la ona li sike e suno. taso tenpo mute la jan ni li sike e suno. jan ni li len e len selo suli pi laso kiwen. taso tenpo ni la mije Taseli li pilin e ni: ona li sin nasa. jan ni li wile jo e mani tawa ijo. linja pi tawa tomo li tawa. tenpo mute lili la mije Taseli li tawa lon ma awen pi tawa tomo pi kulupu Kalanin li pilin e ijo ilo lupa sin.

In this paragraph, we see:
* "len selo suli" - "big outer clothing", that is "cloaks".
* "jan pi suli lili" - "little-big people", that is "young people" (not children)
* "tenpo lili la ona li sike e suno. taso tenpo mute la jan ni li sike e suno." - "That man was older than him". It's the "correct" way to do a comparison, but it sounds a little odd since Mr Dursley is not himself young

[janKipo]

Yeah, comparatives are idioms which don't stand up to literal readings. You learn to live with them or just avoid overt comparisons.
prob 'selo pi ma tomo' "outside the city". 'ijo pi ilo lupa' 'ona li lukin'
'nasa sin'? 'kalama lili pi pilin sewi'? maybe 'kepeken' rather than 'pi'?
'laso kiwen' "hard blue"? ?"dark blue", 'laso pimeja'? 'sin nasa' "strangely young"?
So far:
But outside the city he stopped thinking about drills because of something else. He was stuck in the daily traffic jam (I'd put a comma before 'pi tenpo suno') and saw several people in weird clothes. They wore cloaks. Mr. Dursleyu didn't like people in strange clothes. Young people dress weirdly nowadays! He thought that youthfully crazy people liked these clothes. Mr. Dursley beat on the steering wheel a bit and saw a bunch of weird people along side. He squeaked. Mr. Dursley aggressively thought that these two people were not young. They were older than he. They were dressed in dark blue cloaks, But now though that they were crazy youths. They wanted money for things. The line of cars moved. In a fairly little while Mr. Dursely was going on the parking lot of the Kalanin building and thing about drills again ( 'pilin sin e ijo pi ilo lupa')

[janChowlett]

I'm definitely improving, apart a few silly mistakes!

'nasa sin' can only really be understood in context of the wider phrase "len pona tawa jan mute pi nasa sin", where "len pona tawa jan mute" was as close as I could get to "fashion"; hence, "strange new fashion"; although I also see now that "nasa sin" means "newly weird" rather than "new, weird", so I should probably just have had the phrase with no pi.

There's another "ona" problem here. In "ona li toki pi kalama lili pi pilin sewi", it's "they" who are "whispering excitedly" (although the image of Mr Dursley squeaking is quite amusing ).

"laso kiwen" I freely admit is stretching it - the original is "emerald green".

"sin nasa" again is a bit of a compromise. The original is "this must be some silly stunt". The closest I could see to "stunt" was simply "new thing".

[janKipo]

"fashion" ere is probably 'nasin len' (boring), close to "style". so maybe altogether 'nasin len sin nasa' or even 'pi sin en nasa'.
Agent aside, "whispered excitedly" as 'kalama lili pi pilin sewi' is pretty good.
'kule pi kiwen laso (jelo)'
"stunt" is probably 'musi' of some sort. mainly 'pali musi', I suspect, though that seems to have been used for a teasing ("make fun of")
Decent solution and the bulk is running fairly smoothly. Good job!

[janChowlett]

Yeah, comparatives are idioms which don't stand up to literal readings. You learn to live with them or just avoid overt comparisons.

Has any thought ever been given to adding a word for "than" - a comparator marker, if you will? The language has "more" and "less" in mute/lili, but it is hard to use them without a comparator. It'd be handy to have "mi suli mute <than> sina", and it doesn't immediately seem like it would break syntax (it works much like the existing prepositions).

I don't have time for more translation for a few days, so I thought I give the standard sleeve-notes "by the same author":

jan Ari Pota en tomo pi ijo anpa.
jan Ari Pota en ni: jan li ken ala tawa tan tomo Asakapan.
( - the ni seems necessary because otherwise li applies to jan Ari Pota too, right? Also "Prisoner" was a little tricky)
jan Ari Pota en poki seli.
jan Ari Pota en kulupu pi waso seli.
jan Ari Pota en jan lawa pi telo sijelo palaka.
jan Ari Pota en ijo sewi moli.

[janKipo]

Yes, lots of thought and words, to no conclusion. 'mute' and 'lili' don't mean "more" and "less", just "much"" and "little", though they do get misused. 'sin' means "more" in the sense of added on things. Personally, I cheat and use 'x ali' for "the most x" and then define the class out of which with 'tan' (and allow two-member classes). All of this is very illegal and under the table. "Prisoner of wherever" is 'jan pi awen ike pi (lon) wherever' Prisons are 'tomo pi awen ike' among other things.

[janChowlett]

All right, let's proceed.

tenpo ali la mije Taseli li supa lon supa nanpa luka tu tu. monsi ona li lon tawa lupa. ante ni la tenpo suno kama la ona li sona ala e ilo lupa.

(Is "lon tawa" legal? Is "<foo> la <bar> la" legal? If not, what is?)

ona li lukin ala e ni: waso pi tenpo pimeja li waso lon tenpo suno. taso jan mute lon nasin li lukin e ni. waso mute li waso lon sewi ona la ona mute li luka tawa waso ni li lukin pi uta open. tenpo ala la tenpo pimeja kin la ona mute li lukin e waso ni. taso mije taseli li jo e tenpo suno kama pi nasa ala. tenpo suno kama ni li jo ala e waso pi tenpo pimeja. ona li toki utala e jan luka. ona li toki suli mute kepeken ilo toki li toki utala mute. tenpo suno kama ali la ona li pilin pona mute. tenpo moku la ona li pilin e ni: ona li tawa esun pan, lon selo ante nasin, tan mani e pan suwi.

ona li pini pilin e jan pi len selo suli. taso ona li tawa e kulupu jan ni lon poka esun pan. ona li lukin utala e kulupu ni. ona li sona ala e ni: kulupu ni li pilin ike tawa ona. kulupu ni li toki pi kalama lili pi pilin sewi. ona li lukin ala e poki mani. ona li noka lon poka ona mute li jo e pan suwi sike lon poki la ona li kute lili e toki pi ona mute.

'... jan Pota. mi kute e ni...'
'... jan lili ona. jan Ari...'