the English sentence is an idiomatic expression that asks person A(vi) if he/she has heard something about person B (him), but not FROM B, in the sense that B would be the person through which the information would be provided.
So I think you cannot translate this "from" by "de" en esperanto, but by "pri".

As I look at this sentence, via the Comments link, it is labeled "Sentence nº1215154". It has ten versions in other languages, including two in Japanese, and one in English, which is, "Have you heard from him?".

Your thesis seems to be that the usual meaning of "from" in English isn't the same as the meaning of "from" in this sentence, because this English sentence is idiomatic. While it may be mildly idiomatic, I assert that "from" does mean "from" in this sentence. The contrast in English between "heard from" and "heard of" is normal and clear in this sentence, contrasting with its pair, "Have you heard of him?". This contrast is quite similar to the one in Esperanto between "aŭdis de" and "aŭdis pri". Therefore, it is confusing to me that you say, 'you cannot translate this "from" by "de" en esperanto, but by "pri".' I would argue that you HAVE to translate "heard from" as "aŭdis de" in Esperanto, whereas "heard of" and "heard about" would be "aŭdis pri". Am I misunderstanding your point?

It's a separate issue, but I first I thought that you might have been looking at a different English sentence, when you suggested using "pri". This is one of the things about Tatoeba that I don't understand. As mentioned above, when I look at this sentence, it has ten translations, including one and only one in English. But when I entered my translation, the page showed fifteen translations, including two in English. Those two English sentences show the contrast between "from" and "of". The two Esperanto versions appear on both pages. That page with the fifteen translations is labeled "Sentence nº283345". "Aŭdis pri" fits one of the English sentences, and "Audis de" fits the other. It's odd that Tatoeba sometimes shows both English phrases, sometimes shows only one, but always shows both Esperanto sentences. Since both English and Esperanto show similar, mutually exclusive contrasts in meaning of these sentences, it would be nice to divide them up properly.

>Your thesis seems to be that the usual meaning of "from" in English isn't the same as the meaning of "from" in this sentence, because this English sentence is idiomatic. While it may be mildly idiomatic, I assert that "from" does mean "from" in this sentence.

It's not my thesis. If I ask you if you've heard from Obama, I don't mean that Obama spoke to you, but that you heard ABOUT him. That's how English works...
=> [epo] pri

> It has ten versions in other languages, including two in Japanese, and one in English, which is, "Have you heard from him?".

We are only concerned with direct translations (green arrows. Here, the link with http://tatoeba.org/epo/sentences/show/283345 that you created when you translated into esperanto from that sentence), indirect translations (grey sentences and arrows) are irrelevant and should not be taken into account in this debate (they are here just in case some avanced contributors want ot create direct links because they match). That is why other translations are hidden when we click on the translation button. Please refer to http://blog.tatoeba.org/2010/02...eba.html#rule3 to understand the issue.
The structure of Tatoeba is that of a tree, not block of sentences. One sentence might have several translations in Tatoeba, and, depending on languages, these translations may diverge a lot from translation to translation. That is normal, since languages don't perfectly match each other. Tatoeba reflects that reality. Only green links indicate perfect matches.

Thanks for your response, SacredCeltic. I continue to find your statements about the meaning of English to be the exact opposite of my sense of the meaning of these sentences in the English language.

You say:
"It's not my thesis. If I ask you if you've heard from Obama, I don't mean that Obama spoke to you, but that you heard ABOUT him. That's how English works...
=> [epo] pri"

I say:
That is totally backwards. "heard from Obama" means that he wrote, emailed, spoke, or in some other way communicated TO ME. This stands in exclusive contrast to hearing about Obama.

I don't think we can get anywhere by each asserting that we know English better than the other. I think we need to find an authority or reference on English language usage that we both recognize and accept. Do you have any suggestions on what English language authority or reference you would accept to confirm your position, or alternatively, mine?

Unue mi volas diri: estas admirinde kiel en viaj komentoj vi kondukas sciencan disputon. Mi ne partoprenos ĝin, sed certe refoje legos ĝin - vere indas. Mi konscias pri la problemoj, kiujn ebligas la tre libera tatoeba strukturo. Tamen permesu al mi aldoni personan opinion el alia perspektivo. Se mi demandas min, kion mi dirus en reala interkomunika situacio por esti komprenata, tiam por mi ne ekzistas duboj: "Ĉu vi aŭdis ion pri li?".

>That is totally backwards. "heard from Obama" means that he wrote, emailed, spoke, or in some other way communicated TO ME.

You're wrong. If I asked if you've heard from Obama, it doesn't imply at all that he communicated directly with you. You could have heard from him through the papers or somebody else...

>I don't think we can get anywhere by each asserting that we know English better than the other. I think we need to find an authority or reference on English language usage that we both recognize and accept. Do you have any suggestions on what English language authority or reference you would accept to confirm your position, or alternatively, mine?

Don't you worry, some native will read this at some point and react. That's the way Tatoeba works. Time will tell.

In my opinon it's fare more important to assure that the translation into the target language (in this case Esperanto) results in a sentence which is an exemplary phrase (ekzemplodona frazo) in the target language (far more important, I would like to say, than to explore scrupulous and adhere to the sentence of the language we translate from).

Thanks for your response, SacredCeltic. I feel that your statement, "You're wrong." doesn't help us find common ground and agreement on the question. I will point out that my understanding of "hearing from Obama" isn't limited to one-on-one communications. It may refer to Obama speaking to me as part of a group. Such as, "Europeans have heard from Obama that he values our cooperation." Which, in my opinion, would mean that he has communicated to the group "Europeans", and if I consider myself part of that group, he has communicated thereby to me (whether he speaks the truth or not is another question).

While I wouldn't call it an authority, I Googled "heard from Obama" and "heard of Obama", using the quotation marks in the search. I found what I took to be confirmation of my view of English usage.

Thanks also to al_ex_an_der. While I would agree that your final example sentence is clear in meaning, I am unsure whether you think it is a solid translation of the English sentence on this page, "Have you heard from him?".

By the way, you can see that all direct translations of http://tatoeba.org/epo/sentences/show/283345 other than yours, confirm my theory:

"over hem" in Dutch means "about him" and Dejo, who created this translation http://tatoeba.org/epo/sentences/show/555833 that I support is a Canadian...

Thanks also, SacredCeltic, for your links and explanations of how Tatoeba works in regards to multiple translations. I think I get the basic idea, of the green links indicating, in your words, "perfect matches." My problem is exemplified by the fact that in Sentence nº555833, both English sentences have green links. Yet they have contradictory meanings, which eliminates one or both as a perfect match, in my opinion.

>My problem is exemplified by the fact that in Sentence nº555833, both English sentences have green links.

Because they are both correct. It's normal that a sentence in one language has more than one correct translations in another. Languages don't match one to one...

>Yet they have contradictory meanings

No. Again you're wrong. It's the same misconception you have about English "from".

"Have you heard from him?" and "Did you hear of him?" mean the same thing...

Thanks for the additional links, SacredCeltic. I can't really accept your logic that the link to sentence 283345 confirms your theory. Ignoring my ignorance and possible errors, we see that the two Esperanto variations are both shown as perfect matches (green links). These Esperanto sentences disagree with each other, so the presence of one lends support to your position, while the presence of the other supports my view of proper usage and meaning. Taken together, they confirm nothing (or perhaps everytning).

The meaning of the Dutch in your second link is interesting. I don't know Dutch, but accepting your translation, this page links "over hem"/"about him" with the Esperanto "pri li". As best as I can understand, that lends support to my viewpoint.

SacredCeltic says: 'No. Again you're wrong. It's the same misconception you have about English "from".'

I am always ready to learn. I find this difference in viewpoint quite fascinating, and I hope that we can both stick with it, until there is a resolution that we both accept. I await the appearance of an authority that will be convincing to both of us. It seems unlikely to me that this usage is significantly different between Britain, and its former colonies, such as Canada, Australia, and the United States, but I may learn something there too. Perhaps we can interest native speakers of English from several of those countries to comment on this question.

> As best as I can understand, that lends support to my viewpoint.

How is that??? That's precisely the opposite!

You maintain that "from" in "you heard from him" here translates into [epo]"de" and I maintain, along with Dejo, that it translates into [epo]pri, which is completely different and actually means "about"= [nld]"over".
The Dutch translation is 100% in support of my thesis. You're ALONE to think that your translation is correct and that is because you have a COMPLETE misconception of the English sentence you translated.

>that the two Esperanto variations are both shown as perfect matches (green links). These Esperanto sentences disagree with each other, so the presence of one lends support to your position, while the presence of the other supports my view of proper usage and meaning.

No. One is yours and it is plain wrong. And the other (Dejo's) is perfectly right.

I think you do not understand how Tatoeba works, no more than you understand the word "from" in English...

It's true, SacredCeltic, that I only partially understand how Tatoeba works, and I welcome learning more. I feel much more solid on my understanding of English, and the meanings of the specific sentences that we have been discussing. It's true that I am alone, so far, in expressing in this forum my viewpoint of common English usage for the words "from" and "of", with occasional appearances from "about". On the other hand, no other voices have joined you in directly addressing our little debate. Ours are, up to now, the only engaged voices. I keep hoping that one of the three hundred million native English speakers will offer an opinion on the questions, but they remain curiously silent. I continue to think that some Internet or printed reference might be useful, but that idea doesn't seem to have captured your interest.

>Ours are, up to now, the only engaged voices.

NO. Dejo translated according to my understanding in esperanto. And the Dutch translation also backs this interpretation. So actually, there are already 3 people to disagree wioth you...more is to come...

> I continue to think that some Internet or printed reference might be useful, but that idea doesn't seem to have captured your interest.

I'm not going to do research to prove wrong every wrong translation from English on Tatoeba. For now, you're the one to prove you're right.
I know for 100% that you will stand corrected, and seen how much you are sure of your English, that will probably smart you very much...
I requested the advice from a US Corpus Maintainer. We're not in the same time zones and not everybody is at your disposal...

Thanks for contacting the US Corpus Maintainer. I look forward to hearing from him or her on this English usage. Am I correct in thinking that "US" refers to United States? Does this person also speak Esperanto? It's not necessary, of course, but it would make some of the comparative discussion a little easier. I would hope that there would be several Esperanto speakers active in Tatoeba, who are also native speakers of US, British, and other variations of English. I think that people in the United States are in the middle of their workday at the moment, so perhaps we will hear something later on. You may be right, when you say to me, that this "will probably smart you very much...". I am always ready to learn. We could also ask the Corpus Maintainer about that expression.

I would like to point out that, in my previous message, I said, "no other voices have joined you in directly addressing our little debate." Perhaps I was not clear enough in using the words "directly" and in the following sentence, "engaged." My point was that no one else has commented on our debate in this string of comments, excepting al_ex_an_der, who didn't choose to engage in the questions on the preposition usage that we have been discussing. We heard from neither Dejo nor the Dutch translator directly on this subject ("directly" meaning receiving a message from them in this comments discussion).

I appreciate your taking the time to continue the discussion with me, and I look forward to what I will learn from the US Corpus Maintainer, and any other native English speakers that we can find to comment on our discussion.