Everything Diglot Groupie France Joined 4699 days ago 87 posts - 167 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish
| Message 9 of 55 23 February 2012 at 6:43pm | IP Logged |
Thanks for the links Michael.
Quote:
I've heard the Assimil for Esperanto isn't that good. |
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Is that true ? Because it happens that I've heard the same thing for Assimil Le Coréen
(Korean), I finally bought it and, let alone romanization, I don't understand why such a
reputation. I'm a beginner in Korean so maybe I missing something...
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Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6468 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese
| Message 10 of 55 23 February 2012 at 7:17pm | IP Logged |
Everything wrote:
So the question : what's the best method to learn it ? Lernu is
free
but seems a bit slowly. Assimil I guess. |
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There are 12 different courses on Lernu; one of them should fit your style. I tend to
recommend "Ana Pana" followed by "Ana Renkontas", and maybe some of the audio course
version of "Mi estas komencanto" to listen to on the go; it's a bit like Pimsleur. For
the Ana series you can get a free mentor ("lingvohelpanto") who will correct your
exercises and answer your questions.
I do love that German 10-lesson course, which is a lot more thorough than the Pacujo
10-lesson course. They are presently working on a new version, which will also include
audio, my biggest complaint against it. I learned Esperanto using that course.
As for Assimil Esperanto, it's not bad for a start, but the later lessons feature some
weird "common expressions" or sayings that I never heard in the wild. The audio could
also be better.
Do check if there's an Esperanto course nearby. Find your local group through
http://esperanto-france.org/ and ask them about classes. A class can get you
up to speed very quickly. For example I occasionally teach intensive Esperanto classes
over the weekend (14 hours spread over two days) and by the end, people are already
able to communicate, if slowly. You can also find Esperanto classes accompanying most
major events. http://www.eventoj.hu/2012.htm offers a good overview of
upcoming events. The most famous French Esperanto event is
FESTO, known for its awesome atmosphere
and lots of concerts. The biggest European Esperanto event this year will probably be
the JES in Germany, because
the two traditionally biggest events (World Congress and World Youth Congress) are
taking place in Vietnam this year. They are in a different country every year.
Edited by Sprachprofi on 23 February 2012 at 7:32pm
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Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5727 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto
| Message 11 of 55 23 February 2012 at 11:06pm | IP Logged |
I'm glad my posts were helpful, Everything.
I don't have any experience with Assimil Esperanto, but someone I trust said she didn't like the Assimil course for Esperanto, so that's why I wrote what I did. Because Sprachprofi has used that course she can clarify any problems with the course.
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Everything Diglot Groupie France Joined 4699 days ago 87 posts - 167 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish
| Message 12 of 55 24 February 2012 at 4:50pm | IP Logged |
I've started to learn with Lernu but it's a bit boring. I miss Assimil :(
But, what about Ido ? Lingua Franca Nova ?
Edited by Everything on 24 February 2012 at 5:02pm
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fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4713 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese
| Message 13 of 55 24 February 2012 at 5:25pm | IP Logged |
You should give "Kurso" (http://www.kurso.com.br/elshuto.php?fr) a try. It was the best one I used for beginners, better than the Lernu ones. But Lernu is also very good.
Forget about Ido, Interlingua, etc.....
Among the artificial languages, Esperanto has the vast majority of speakers, is the most widely spreaded around the world (there are university courses taught in Esperanto in China), has the largest and most active community, that's what really matters.
Edited by fabriciocarraro on 24 February 2012 at 5:26pm
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Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6947 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish
| Message 14 of 55 24 February 2012 at 6:15pm | IP Logged |
I'm currently participating in a 6 week challenge, and am about 29 hours into learning
Esperanto. At 8 hours I read my first Wikipedia entry with almost perfect understanding
(though it was on a familiar subject), and at 20-some hours I participated in my first
Esperanto meet and was able to keep up a conversation with no problem.
You can find my ratings of various beginner courses here:
http://bit.ly/AoMS4F
By the way, I'm a little embarrassed to ask, but how do you get assigned a mentor for the
"Ana Pana" and "Ana Renkontas" courses? I couldn't find it anywhere.
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Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5727 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto
| Message 15 of 55 24 February 2012 at 8:08pm | IP Logged |
I think the other conlangs are worth studying. I just wish there were other conlangs that could give Esperanto a run for its money as far as popularity is concerned.
Ido is a revised version of Esperanto and has an intriguing history of how it came to be. There's a free online book called "Ido for All" that you can download if you want to take a look at it.
Lingua Franca Nova is a creole of the Romance languages. The creator has a website and a wiki.
Interlingua is another IAL, which is supposed to be recognizable on sight to speakers of Romance languages, although it's supposed to be pretty hard to write in. The UMI offers a free 10 lesson course. From the little that I've dabbled in, I prefer it to Esperanto because it has the perfect tense. Alas, like every other conlang other than Esperanto, there isn't much material for it.
There are plenty of other interesting conlangs out there, but Ido and Interlingua are the other two IALs that make up the Big Three.
If you want to read about a guy who wanted to write a novel in an IAL, read the blog "The Joy of Languages" by Robert Winter. He tried several conlangs before giving up.
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Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6437 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 16 of 55 24 February 2012 at 9:50pm | IP Logged |
Interlingua, Ido, and Esperanto are the "big three" of conlangs like French, Provençal, and Portuguese are the big Romance languages of France... except the ratios are even more skewed towards Esperanto in terms of number of speakers.
As for novels in conlangs, it's hard to know where to start... the Concise Encyclopedia of the Original Literature of Esperanto is a surprisingly good read, though.
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