{"id":3075,"date":"2018-01-15T10:06:52","date_gmt":"2018-01-15T10:06:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/esperanto\/?p=3075"},"modified":"2018-01-15T10:08:18","modified_gmt":"2018-01-15T10:08:18","slug":"himself-mem-or-si","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/esperanto\/himself-mem-or-si\/","title":{"rendered":"I Myself See Myself &#8211; mem kaj si &#8211; The Two &#8220;selfs&#8221; in Esperanto"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are two concepts in Esperanto which new learners often mix up &#8211; not because they are all that similar to each other &#8211; but because they both translate approximately to &#8220;himself&#8221; (herself, themselves, et cetera.) These are the particle <em>mem<\/em> and the reflexive pronoun <em>si<\/em>.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3078\" style=\"width: 360px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone post-item__attachment\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3078\" class=\"wp-image-3078 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/esperanto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2018\/01\/5351635_bd2452a5d3_z-350x263.jpg\" alt=\"Reflexive - Mi povas vidi min - Image credit: Stig Andersen on Flikr\" width=\"350\" height=\"263\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/esperanto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2018\/01\/5351635_bd2452a5d3_z-350x263.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/esperanto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2018\/01\/5351635_bd2452a5d3_z.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-3078\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mi povas vidi min &#8211; Image credit: Stig Andersen on Flikr<\/p><\/div>\n<h1><em>Mem<\/em>-o to myself<\/h1>\n<h2>It&#8217;s all for emphasis<\/h2>\n<p>Of these two, <em>mem<\/em> is the simplest one to explain. It&#8217;s used for emphasis &#8211; usually of the word that comes before it. Sort of a verbal underlining.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Hodia\u016d <em>mem<\/em> mi veturos al Tours &#8211; On this <em>very<\/em> day I will drive to Tours.<\/li>\n<li>Hiera\u016d <em>mem<\/em> vi diris, ke&#8230; &#8211; <em>Only<\/em> yesterday you said &#8230;<\/li>\n<li>kvaza\u016d la \u0109ambro mem kuntiradus la brovojn en serioza meditado &#8211; as if the <em>very<\/em> room were furrowing its brows in serious contemplation.<\/li>\n<li>Tiu vorto trovi\u011das en kelkaj vortaroj, sed ne en la lingvo <em>mem<\/em>. &#8211; This word is found in a few dictionaries, but not in the language <em>proper<\/em> \/ not in the <em>actual<\/em> language.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Without <em>mem<\/em>, the meaning would be almost the same. It&#8217;s just that the key element would not have the same emphasis.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Today I will drive &#8230;<\/li>\n<li>Yesterday you said &#8230;<\/li>\n<li>As if the room were furrowing its brows &#8230;<\/li>\n<li>&#8230; but not in the language.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;m hoping that by this point, many of you are asking &#8220;but what about &#8216;-self&#8217;?&#8221; You may have learned in your basic Esperanto course that <em>mem<\/em> means &#8220;himself, herself, itself.&#8221; I intentionally avoided these words in my examples to show how <em>mem<\/em> can add emphasis without comparing it to &#8220;-self&#8221;. Ultimately we want to express ideas in Esperanto, not translate words. Just a few more more examples to show where &#8220;-self&#8221; comes in.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>kvaza\u016d la \u0109ambro mem &#8230; &#8211; as if the room itself &#8230;<\/li>\n<li>sed ne en la lingvo mem &#8211; but not in the language itself.<\/li>\n<li>Mi mem ne havas biciklon, sed mia frato havas &#8211; I myself don&#8217;t have a bike, but my brother has one.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Remember that <em>mem<\/em> is about emphasizing another word in the sentence. There is a secondary meaning of <em>mem<\/em> that follows from this, similar to how it works in English. If <em>Petro mem<\/em> built the house, that means that he did it himself. He didn&#8217;t pay someone to do it, and he quite possibly didn&#8217;t have any help. (&#8220;All by himself.&#8221;)<\/p>\n<h1>She will &#8220;<em>si<\/em>&#8221; for herself<\/h1>\n<h2><em>Si<\/em> &#8220;reflects&#8221; back on the subject<\/h2>\n<p>The term &#8220;reflexive&#8221; means that the subject and the object are the same thing. Imagine that I&#8217;d just waxed the table and I can see my reflection in it. If I were an Esperanto-speaking caveman, I might say something like this.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Tomaso vidas Tomason &#8211; Thomas sees Thomas.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In Esperanto, we can just plug in mi for Tomaso if we don&#8217;t want to sound like a caveman. However, in English, something funny happens.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Mi vidas min &#8211; I see <em>myself<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The &#8220;-self&#8221; here has nothing to do with emphasis, so it is not <em>mem<\/em>. It is called a &#8220;reflexive pronoun&#8221; in English. In Esperanto, if the subject is <em>mi<\/em>, <em>ni<\/em>, or <em>vi, <\/em>we don&#8217;t have to do anything special here. However, if it&#8217;s &#8220;third person&#8221; (just about anything but <em>mi<\/em>, <em>ni<\/em>, or <em>vi<\/em>), that&#8217;s where <em>si<\/em> comes in.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Mi vidas min &#8211; I see myself.<\/li>\n<li>Vi vidas vin &#8211; You see yourself.<\/li>\n<li>Li vidas sin &#8211; He sees himself.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Note that there is not a <em>mem<\/em> to be seen here. The &#8220;-self&#8221; here\u00a0 has nothing to do with emphasis, but only means that the subject and object are the same thing. Remember that <em>si<\/em> is only for third person &#8211; that is, not with <em>mi<\/em>, <em>ni<\/em>, or <em>vi<\/em>. Also note that <em>si<\/em> must be used any time we&#8217;re referring to the subject. If we use a different pronoun, it means a different person.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Mi kombas al mi la harojn. &#8211; I comb my hair.<\/li>\n<li>\u015ci kombas al si la harojn. &#8211; She combs her hair.<\/li>\n<li>Mi kombas al \u015di la harojn. &#8211; I comb her hair (not my own.)<\/li>\n<li>\u015ci kombas al \u015di la harojn. &#8211; She combs another woman&#8217;s hair (not her own.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>(Bonvolu ne \u015derci en la komentejo pri kalvuloj.)<\/p>\n<p>Another common use of <em>si<\/em> is in the possessive pronoun <em>sia<\/em>. Again, this always refers to the subject. It is only used in &#8220;third person&#8221;.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Mi venis kun mia frato. &#8211; I came with my brother.<\/li>\n<li>\u015ci venis kun sia frato. &#8211; She came with her brother.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And again, if you don&#8217;t use <em>sia<\/em>, the listener will assume you&#8217;re not talking about the subject.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u015ci venis kun\u00a0\u015dia frato &#8211; She came with the brother of some other woman or girl we mentioned previously.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h1><em>Si<\/em> and <em>mem<\/em> together<\/h1>\n<p>There will be times when you&#8217;ll want to do both things at once &#8211; refer to a third-person subject <em>and<\/em> emphasize that it&#8217;s this very subject (<em>la subjekto mem<\/em>) that you&#8217;re referring to. Enter &#8220;<em>si mem.<\/em>&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>We could probably do an entire blog post on <em>si<\/em> and <em>mem<\/em> together (and I will if there are enough comments requesting this). For now I&#8217;ll just say that many of the times we see <em>mem<\/em> with <em>si<\/em>, the <em>mem<\/em> is actually superfluous, but by far not always. Just remember that this is an emphasized reference to the subject.<\/p>\n<p>One of the more common and useful ways to use these together is in expressions like <em>per si mem<\/em>, which means approximately &#8220;in and of itself.&#8221;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Se vorto <em>per si mem<\/em> estas internacia, tiam\u00a0 \u0109iu havas la rajton uzi tiun \u0109i vorton &#8211; if a word is international <em>in and of itself<\/em>, then everybody has the right to use this word.<\/li>\n<li>Esperanto <em>per si mem<\/em> ne povas \u015dan\u011di la destinon de la homaro &#8211; Esperanto can&#8217;t change the humanity&#8217;s destiny <em>all by itself<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h1>Express ideas &#8211; Don&#8217;t translate<\/h1>\n<p>There are other good descriptions of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/bertilow.com\/pmeg\/gramatiko\/e-vortecaj_vortetoj\/ceteraj\/mem.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">mem<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/bertilow.com\/pmeg\/gramatiko\/pronomoj\/si\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">si<\/a> out there (I&#8217;ve hot-linked the descriptions in PMEG). My goal isn&#8217;t to duplicate those descriptions, but rather to highlight the difference to avoid some of the typical confusion which English-speaking learners encounter. When you find yourself thinking about how to translate &#8220;-self&#8221; into Esperanto, it&#8217;s best to take a step back and ask what idea you&#8217;re trying to express. If you want to emphasize a word, use\u00a0<em>mem<\/em>. If you want to refer to the subject (and if the subject is not I, you, or we), use <em>si<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"350\" height=\"263\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/esperanto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2018\/01\/5351635_bd2452a5d3_z-350x263.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Reflexive - Mi povas vidi min - Image credit: Stig Andersen on Flikr\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/esperanto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2018\/01\/5351635_bd2452a5d3_z-350x263.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/esperanto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2018\/01\/5351635_bd2452a5d3_z.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><p>There are two concepts in Esperanto which new learners often mix up &#8211; not because they are all that similar to each other &#8211; but because they both translate approximately to &#8220;himself&#8221; (herself, themselves, et cetera.) These are the particle mem and the reflexive pronoun si. Mem-o to myself It&#8217;s all for emphasis Of these&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/esperanto\/himself-mem-or-si\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":149,"featured_media":3078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[7736],"tags":[5105,337461,337460,337462,509843,510156,7556,9945,337466],"class_list":["post-3075","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-esperanto-language","tag-esperanto","tag-herself","tag-himself","tag-itself","tag-mem","tag-refleksivo","tag-reflexive","tag-si","tag-themselves"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/esperanto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/esperanto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/esperanto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/esperanto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/149"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/esperanto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3075"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/esperanto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3079,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/esperanto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3075\/revisions\/3079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/esperanto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/esperanto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/esperanto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/esperanto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}