# Esperanto: you put your left leg in, your left leg out



## frognsausage

Hi there!

Anyone that can put this into Esperanto?

I'm doing 10 minute lesson in a language if my choice and I'm going to try to do basic body parts and finish with the hokey-cokey!

You put your left leg in, your left leg out.

Dankon


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## lingvemulo

My Esperanto isn't the greatest so I'm not sure what is deemed proper:

1. Oni enmetas sian maldekstran kruron, oni elprenas sian maldekstran kruron.

2. Metu la maldekstran kruron enen, prenu la maldesktran kruron eksteren.

Two random possible possibilities, maybe.


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## porilo

Mmm... that's hard. The difficulty is that you're going to need the exact same number of syllables as in English, otherwise the words won't fit with the music. 

You put your left leg in = only 6 syllables

Some poetic licence will be needed, which isn't my forte at all. 

Best I can come up with (and not very good, I'm afraid) is 
"maldekst' krur' en, maldekst' krur' el "  but it's not proper grammatical Esperanto.


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## frognsausage

Oh dear!

Not a good way of teaching body parts in Esperanto then. I'll have to re-think that and practise it for another time!!

Thanks for your attempts!


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## pickarooney

So the Esperanto for 'left' is 'bad right'? Not the most progressive of languages after all.


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## porilo

Actually in Esperanto "mal" itself doesn't really mean bad, it means the opposite of whatever word it is attached to. The Esperanto word for "bad" is "malbona", i.e. "the opposite of good", so "maldestra" technically means "the opposite of right". Like "malsanulejo" (hospital) = a place for people who are the opposite of healthy, i.e. ill/sick.


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## Tim~!

pickarooney said:


> So the Esperanto for 'left' is 'bad right'? Not the most progressive of languages after all.


There's the word "liva" too.  However, usage by the speakers of the language has led to the overwhelming popularity of "opposite-to-right" (not "bad-right" as you erroneously state) as the word for "left".

There are several other such examples.  "Short" could be "kurta", but common use has it as "mallonga".  "Young" could be "olda", but most people would use "maljuna".  Similarly, the common word for "open" is "malferma", but "aperta" also happens to exist, even if it's not commonly used.

It's a central problem for the language, I think.  How to choose which is the root word (why "right" over "left", "young" over "old"?)?  Or should a sense of equality mean that each concept has its own name rather than being named as the opposite of something else?  What about the poor speakers of other languages who will have to learn even more brand-new words?  

There are alternatives to opposites in place, although the bulk of the speakers of the language simply don't use them.


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## Brioche

Tim~! said:


> There's the word "liva" too.  However, usage by the speakers of the language has led to the overwhelming popularity of "opposite-to-right" (not "bad-right" as you erroneously state) as the word for "left".
> 
> There are several other such examples.  "Short" could be "kurta", but common use has it as "mallonga".  "Young" could be "olda", but most people would use "maljuna".  Similarly, the common word for "open" is "malferma", but "aperta" also happens to exist, even if it's not commonly used.
> 
> There are alternatives to opposites in place, although the bulk of the speakers of the language simply don't use them.



Mi malaprobas nenecesajn novvortojn kiel "kurta", "olda", "aperta", "mava". Por ridetigi miajn samopinianojn mi moke diras "Malmavan malvesperon!" anstataû "Bonan matenon". 

Mi supozas, ke Zamenhof prenis la ideon de _mal_ el la francaj vortoj heureux/malheureux [feliĉa/malfeliĉa].


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## CliveofIndia44

One Esperanto version of the 'Hokey-Pokey' is,
La dekstran manon en,
La dekstran manon el,
La dekstran manon en,
Kaj ĝin svingu jen kaj jen,
Nun sekvas Hoki-hoki
Kaj vi turnu vin,
Jen kiel dancas ni!
K.t.p....


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