Getting started with Lojban (alpha)

Questions

Questions in Lojban are very easy to learn, and they come in two kinds: fill in the blank, and true/false questions. Let's begin with the true-false question kind – that's pretty overcomeable, since it only involves one word, xu.

True/false questions

The word xu transforms the whole sentence into a question, asking whether it is true or not.

In the previous sentences, xu was placed right at the beginning. But this is not required: xu may go anywhere in a sentence, and it gives emphasis to the preceding word (or construct). When placed right at the beginning of a sentence, it is understood to come right after .i. And since .i is responsible for initiating the sentence, emphasis goes to the whole sentence (or, alternatively, to nowhere in particular).

To answer a true/false question, you just repeat the selbri (possibly negated).

Negation is a complex subject, and we will learn more about it in a future lesson. For now, just stick with na, which roughly means "It is not true that (...)".

na bridi contradictory negator; scope is an entire bridi.

Also, there is another way of answering a true/false question, which is to use the word go'i.

The word go'i just repeats the previous bridi, and hence these two approaches that we saw are equivalent.

go'i pro-bridi: preceding bridi; in answer to a yes/no question, repeats the claim, meaning yes.

Fill in the blank questions

The other kind of question is "fill in the blank". Here, you ask for the question word to be replaced with a construct that would make the bridi correct. There are several of these words, depending on what you are asking about. The most frequently used are ma, for sumti questions, and mo, for selbri questions.

To ask about a sumti, you just place the question word ma where you want your answer. For example, do dunda ma mi asks the listener to reply with the sumti that would correctly fill the x₂, that is, the gift.

Similarly, to ask about a selbri, you just place the question word mo where you want your answer. For example, do mo means "What are you doing?" (or "What/Who are you?"), to which one could reply tavla ("I am talking"), or prenu ("I am a person").

Remark

Since tone of voice or sentence structure does not reveal whether a sentence is a question or not, one better not miss the question word. Therefore, since people tend to focus more on words in the beginning or at the end of sentences, it's usually worthwhile to re-order the sentence so that the question words are at those places.

Exercises

It's now time for you to attempt a few more translations. You will need the following new word:

djuno x₁ knows fact(s) x₂ are true about x₃ by epistemology x₄.

Translate the following sentences from Lojban into English:

Now, translate the following sentences from English into Lojban:

Practice

As usual, before proceeding to the next lesson, get some practice with interactive exercises – look for the "Practice" button nearby!

Beware that exercises loop indefinitely, so feel free to stop once you feel you've had enough. And be sure to revisit exercises on different days, to benefit from the spacing effect.