Breakdown of Mi ne ekkoleras rapide, sed hodiaŭ mi koleris pro la tro laŭta bruo en la oficejo.
mi
I
rapide
quickly
la
the
en
in
Questions & Answers about Mi ne ekkoleras rapide, sed hodiaŭ mi koleris pro la tro laŭta bruo en la oficejo.
What does ekkoleras mean, and why isn’t it just koleras?
The prefix ek- often means to start or to begin suddenly.
So:
- koleri = to be angry
- ekkoleri = to become angry, to start getting angry
That makes Mi ne ekkoleras rapide mean I don’t get angry quickly.
If you used koleras there instead, it would be less natural for this idea. The sentence is talking about how quickly someone becomes angry, not simply about the state of already being angry.
Why is the first verb ekkoleras but the second one is koleris?
They express slightly different ideas:
- Mi ne ekkoleras rapide = I do not become angry quickly
- hodiaŭ mi koleris = today I was angry / got angry
In the second clause, koleris is a normal past-tense form of koleri. It describes what happened today.
A speaker could also say hodiaŭ mi ekkoleris if they wanted to emphasize the moment of becoming angry. But koleris is perfectly natural if the point is simply that anger happened today.
Why is the first clause in the present tense and the second in the past tense?