Thursday, September 16, 2010

I worry

My boss taught me an interesting expression that today that uses the verb muretsema. This verb normally means 'to worry'.

muretseda - 'da' form
muretsen - I worry
muretsesin - I worried
muretsenud - 'nud' form
muretsetakse - one worries
muretseti - one worried

Õpilane muretses oma hinnete pärast 'The student worried about their grades'
Ema muretseb oma poja pärast 'The mother worries after her son'

However it can also be used in the sense of 'acquiring sth' as in the example below:

Ma muretsesin endale uue auto 'I acquired myself a car'.

The path or method to acquisition is unspecified and quite often refers to either being given something or stealing it.

The sentence above literally means 'I worried myself a car'. Kind of fits if you imagine the situation of a kid stealing it. Now acquired, he worries about getting caught. Or especially in these days when money is tight and a new car would just be adding to the bills to be paid.

3 comments:

  1. It occurred to me that this might be German influence: "besorgen" means to get something like Estonian "hankima, muretsema", Sorge/Besorgnis means "worry".

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  2. Hello Colm. This is Jerry. I'm new to this blog. It looks good. Nice ta meetcha. Are you positive that

    muretsetakse - one worries
    muretseti - one worried

    shouldn't be...

    muretsetakse - They worry, They are worrying
    muretseti - They worried

    ? Or could it be correct for both Singular and Plural First Person and Third Person?

    I ask because I have always had people tell me it means "they..."

    Well, I looked here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_grammar#Verbs, and it said that these are good for both the Singular and Plural Numbers of the -takse and -ti forms. I also saw that they are Indicitave Mood, Passive Voice (Also known as Fourth Person!), Present Tense and Imperfect (Past Imperfective.) In fact, it shows that there is no differentiation in Number for the Passive Voice in any form.

    Also, you mentioned the 'nud' form. I also gathered from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_grammar#Adjectives, that this is the Active Perfect Participle, formed by adding -nud to the stem of a -da infinitive), creating an adjective. Of course, we see that -nud is a verb participle first.

    Alrighty then, I'm gone.

    Cheers,

    Jerry

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  3. Hi Jerry. You should check out the post I made in March 2010 on the Estonian impersonal (http://estonianlanguage.blogspot.com/2010/03/estonian-impersonal.html) It will answer your questions.

    They worry/ are worrying = Nad muretsevad
    They worried/were worrying = Nad muretsesid

    muretsetakse and muretseti are more like 'there is worrying' and 'there was worrying' where we do not specify who does the action.

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