UniLang

Hello,

Is below sentence grammatically correct?

Teni sur al kiuj gravas

I want it to mean: "hold on to the ones that matter"

Thank you!

Your use of prepositions doesn't make sense in Esperanto.

To hold 'on to' doesn't translate to Esperanto that way. Sur always means on-top-of and al pretty much always describes the direction of the action.

So 'teni sur al' translates to 'to-hold-on-to on-top-of to'... which is gibberish.

Teni already includes the idea of 'on to', so we can just use it as is. Now whom do we want to hold on to? Let's go with tiuj (those ones)

Teni tiujn (to-hold-on-to those-ones)

We had to put it in the accusative because it's what we're holding on to.

Now we can add a phrase for "who matter".

Teni tiujn, kiuj gravas. (to-hold-on-to those-ones, who are-important).

Not the only way to translate it, but it should do.

BonoboBanana wrote:
Teni tiujn, kiuj gravas. (to-hold-on-to those-ones, who are-important).

Not the only way to translate it, but it should do.

From a non-English speaker perspective, 'teni' here doesn't mean anything to me. I would use 'zorgi pri'
Something like:
Zorgu pri tiuj, kiuj gravas al vi.