tenpo mute la = often
tenpo la = sometimes

I'm adding an alternative translation.


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pona (though I think I'd personally struggle to interpret "tenpo la").

I'll admit my translation isn't without ambiguity. "mute" stretches all the way from "several" to "many" in Pu, so I think there's a lot of flexibility for "tenpo mute", one end of which has "often" one of which has "sometimes".


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"mute" is "many, a lot, more, much, several, very" - not "some". Pu has "tenpo mute" only once for "many times" - not "sometimes". So, yes, "mute" can mean "several" and "many". But I'm confused: are you saying that "some" in "sometimes" is the same as "several"? That would be strange, given that "someone" is "jan" and not "jan mute"; "something" is "ijo" and not "ijo mute".


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> But I'm confused: are you saying that "some" in "sometimes" is the same as "several"?

No, don't *think* I'm doing an etymological decomposition (though maybe it was confusing my explanation a bit?)

In this sentence I'd take "sometimes" as indicating that something had happened on at least several occasions in the past, and that there's an expectancy that it will continue to happen sporadically in the future. Which I was very crudely approximating as "several times".


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I better stop thinking then.


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The English sentence, "I do that sometimes.", paraphrased would be....

https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/9525609
I do that from time to time.

https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/9525612
I do that off and on.

I do that every now and then.
https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/9525614







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> I better stop thinking then.

To be absolutely clear in case I came off as rude (which I didn't at all intend), I should have said "No, I don't think that [...]", rather than "No, don't think that [...] ". Leaving out pronouns can be dangerous in English...


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Ah yes, English

Such an easy language to manage…


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Natural languages can't be easy if they are meant to be able to express human thinking, after all. *shrugs*


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@inkepa
Thanks for the clarification. :)

I resume thinking then:
Pu has "jan li pona tawa mi" - "people are good to me", so "jan" - not "jan mute" - is "people". The same works with "tenpo" from my point of view: "tenpo" - not "tenpo mute" - is "times". "at times" = "tenpo la" = "sometimes".

Adding "mute" is unnecessary, as if it has to be stressed that there were/are many times, which yields "often", doesn't it?

Well, just my 5 cents.


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>Adding "mute" is unnecessary, as if it has to be stressed that there were/are many times, which yields "often", doesn't it?

Making the plural explicit helps a bit as a prompt as to what's intended I think, so I'd make it explicit, though I follow your reasoning. [ For comparison, German "manchmal" is etymology related to "many"+"times" (mannigmal). ]

> Well, just my 5 cents.
pona tawa sina


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~~I don't see how you're following my logic, so this one is on you! :)~~
Sorry, I misread.

Also "it helps" is a slippery slope towards putting commas before prepositions, if you know what I mean. ;)

"manchmal" ("manches Mal") is singular, by the way.


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(I acknowledge that I incorrectly translated 'mal' in the plural)


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