How about "do viska le do dirce xu tergu'i pu'o le nu do cliva"? Or ".i pau do viska le do seldicfle xu tergu'i pu'o lenu do pu cliva"?

>>655

Not sure if your doubt is about how to say on/off, or "if" in the sense of "whether", or something else.

For on/off I normally use cikna/cando (not just lights, but anything that can be on/off). For if/whether you can use "xu kau". So I would say something like:

xu do viska lo nu xu kau lo do tergu'i cu cikna kei pu lo nu do cliva

This is kind of interesting. Three possible words for "on" have been given: dirce, seldicfle, and cikna. Dirce ("radiating") is probably too specific, since it applies only to light emitters. (I suppose that could include radio transmitters, microwave ovens, and x-ray machines, or even heaters, stoves, and ovens.) Seldicfle ("is a destination for electric current", or "is powered") is useful for any device powered by electricity. Cikna ("awake") is far too metaphorical, since a light-bulb could hardly be said to be awake/alert/concious. Cando ("inactive/not moving") is also troublesome as a way of saying a light-bulb is off, since we normally don't think of light-bulbs as moving no matter whether they are on or off.

Another way of asking this question is "do viska tu'a xu ledo tergu'i pu lenu do cliva", which is a shorter way of writing "do viska lenu xu ledo tergu'i cu co'e kei pu lenu do cliva", "Did you see whether your light was doing something before you left?"

>>657

You should probably be using "le" instead of "lo" in a couple of places. The speaker is probably thinking of a specific light and certainly thinking of a specific event of leaving. Translating your Lojban back to English, I would probably come up with "Have you seen any of your lights on before you've left?".