Translation
video camera; film or television camera
Word origin
From Latin camera, a vaulted chamber, by way of the camera obscura: literally a dark room, with a pinhole in one wall, that threw an upside-down image of the world onto the opposite wall. The room shrank into a box, the box got a lens, and the name for the room stayed on the box. English chamber is the same Latin word taken through French.
- Origin
- Latin
- Root
- camera
- English cognates
- camera, chamber, comrade
Examples
.
The camera was in the street in front of the building.
.
He carried the camera through the whole town.
.
We need a new camera for the film.
English lets one word cover both machines. Esperanto does not, and getting this wrong marks you out immediately.
Fotilo is the stills camera: plus the -- suffix, which makes the tool for doing a thing. It is a home-grown build, entirely transparent, and it is what Esperantists actually say for the thing in your pocket. The longer fotografilo means the same and turns up in more formal writing.
is the moving-image machine: the film camera, the television camera, the one on a tripod with somebody behind it, and the security camera on the corner of a building. If it records motion, it is a . If it takes photographs, it is a .
The awkward case is the modern phone, which does both. Usage there follows the job rather than the object: you fotas per when you take a picture and filmas per when you record. Do not reach for just because you would say camera in English. That instinct is the mistake this page exists to head off.
Note the shape of the word: ends -ao, so the accusative is with three vowels in a row. That is legal and normal, and it is a good reminder that Esperanto never bends a stem to make a form easier to say.
Where this fits
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kamerao: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Esperanto word "kamerao" (video camera; film or television camera): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.
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Start your free weekThis word is part of lesson 40.