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Learning Esperanto as a 3rd language | ||
Tags: Usefulness | Esperanto | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| rebel dragon Newbie United States sevenlanguagenati Joined 3858 days ago 20 posts - 23 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Danish | Message 1 of 6 09 May 2014 at 6:14am | IP Logged |
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I couldn't find anything specifically on this topic on this board, so I'm asking it here.
A lot of the benefits of learning Esperanto center around it being a good second language to learn, and learning it before other languages makes other languages easier to learn. I'm wondering if learning it after studying another language for awhile will still yield significant benefits, and if it would be worth taking time off from studying my current TL (French) to learn Esperanto. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7243 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes  2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 2 of 6 09 May 2014 at 6:55am | IP Logged |
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No, I wouldn't do that. Just work on getting your French up to par. Unless you're just
really interested in Esperanto. I happen to think the best way to learn your target language is to learn your target language. You should ask yourself why you are studying French though. I see what got you started. What is your motivation now? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5267 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 3 of 6 09 May 2014 at 1:18pm | IP Logged |
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Welcome to the forum, rebel dragon. HTLAL is an exciting place. People are learning languages, experimenting, challenging themselves, making it happen. Some are learning one language, others are learning multiple languages. It's inspiring.
I've been here almost four years. In that time I've seen a lot of beginners come and go. I've seen several beginners come on here who are so enthused that they want to learn everything at once. I haven't seen many of these folks succeed yet in learning a language, any language, to a high level. I always advise beginners to learn one foreign language first before diving headfirst into the buffet. If you were to do so, your time to pick up the other would be dramatically reduced for several reasons. One reason that often gets overlooked is how successfully learning a second language gives a learner an advantage in learning the next language- even an unrelated one. Learning a second language to a high level (B-1 or above) teaches a person not only that language, but how languages work. It also teaches how to learn and what methods work best in individual learning. Moving a language from the "studies" column to the "speaks" column gives a learner an intangible quality of confidence in language-learning because of the experience of the ups and downs, highs and lows, setbacks and great leaps forward, having lead to success. By learning a language to a high level you will give yourself a huge advantage in language-learning. Many people here started by learning multiple languages simultaneously at school. That provides a certain amount of discipline- regular schedule, homework to do and turn in, tests to take, pressure to obtain a passing grade, etc. It is difficult to replicate that scenario for adult self-learners. More often than not, learning multiple languages simultaneously as an adult self-learner, without a second language already learned, doesn't lead to successfully learning a language to a high level. There are always exceptions to what I have observed. Spreading yourself too thin as an adult beginner will most likely result in frustration. That being said, do what you want to do. Maybe you need to explore a few languages first before you really commit to one. Only you know what you want to do and are capable of doing. Maybe you just want to learn a bit of a bunch of languages and that's fine. As to Esperanto, Benny Lewis of Fi3M.com advises beginners to spend two weeks learning Esperanto for many of the reasons I've talked about. Esperanto is not a language of any country but is the most accepted constructed language in the world. Maybe you might want to learn it to a high level. Esperanto can be as useful as you want it to be, all over the world. Though you will have to seek opportunities to use it. Good luck, and again, welcome to the forum. Edited by iguanamon on 09 May 2014 at 1:36pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6602 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 4 of 6 09 May 2014 at 6:02pm | IP Logged |
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If you like Esperanto way more than French, go for it.
If you're procrastinating, make your French learning more diverse. If no matter what you do, you fail to get motivated for French again, drop it unless you actually need it. I myself learned some Esperanto after English and Finnish, because I'd heard that language learning gets significantly easier after four languages. It was a great experience anyway, even if I ended up dropping the language. Esperanto will always be there if you actually want to learn it. If it's not your first foreign language, it's easier to experiment with new methods using Esperanto. There are materials for all sorts of learners. Forum member Iversen learned Esperanto after about 10 languages :) Edited by Serpent on 09 May 2014 at 6:08pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4588 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 5 of 6 09 May 2014 at 11:25pm | IP Logged |
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There is a lot of anecdotal evidence about the so-called propaedeutic value of learning Esperanto. These things are very difficult to prove and a lot of the
studies which Esperanto-speakers are fond of quoting as "proof" on closer inspection turn out to have been quite limited. One of the Esperanto organisations of which I am a trustee has invested a lot of money over the past decade in trying to build up a portfolio of serious academic research around this theme. So far there are some indications that exposure to Esperanto as a "starter language" could be helpful for children when they come to learn another foreign language, but a lot more work would have to be done to be able to say anything for definite than that. From a personal perspective, I learned Esperanto as my third language and I don't think it is helping me with my fourth language (Croatian) at all. I agree with what iguanamon has said and I definitely think that your first foreign language is the hardest. For me that was German, which I started without any knowledge of grammar (eg. I didn't know what a verb was!) and I therefore experienced a very steep learning curve. If I'd been able to have that learning curve by learning a 'simpler' language like Esperanto first, I expect learning German would have felt a lot less stressful for me. But by the time I'd mastered German grammar I think I'd already reaped all the potential benefits that Esperanto could have given me in that respect. In general - and I say this as an active member of the Esperanto movement - I wouldn't recommend that anyone learn Esperanto unless they are... well... interested in learning Esperanto! While it may have less complicated grammar than many other languages, it still requires a certain amount of work to become fluent and I think it's difficult to put that amount of effort into any language without a strong personal motivation. Where I can see that the experience of learning Esperanto might be beneficial is that it is comparatively easier (or perhaps just comparatively quicker) to reach functional fluency in it, and it's not uncommon to meet people who have been studying for a few months and can already hold a decent conversation, understand a lecture, write an article for a magazine. This experience of fluency could perhaps be a confidence boost for someone who has reached an intermediate stage in another language because I think it is a pretty awesome feeling the first time you realise you are actually *thinking* in a different language rather than translating from your native language in your head. Achieving that in Esperanto is not an unreasonable goal and could perhaps help give someone the motivation and belief that they can achieve this in other languages too. In the case of the OP, knowledge of French would certainly give some advantage in recognising Esperanto roots and so perhaps the two languages would complement each other quite well. There is a fairly vibrant Esperanto scene in France with a good calendar of events, so studying both languages could perhaps present combined opportunities to travel etc. But only if you are actually interested in Esperanto :) Edited by Radioclare on 09 May 2014 at 11:26pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| rebel dragon Newbie United States sevenlanguagenati Joined 3858 days ago 20 posts - 23 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Danish | Message 6 of 6 10 May 2014 at 3:15am | IP Logged |
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Thanks to everyone who's responded so far! I think I will stick to French for now; I do want to learn Esperanto at some point, but I do feel like having to take time out from French at this time would really slow down my efforts in learning French.
As far as what my motivation is for studying French now...I did make a goal of seeing how much of a language I could learn in a year, and French has certainly grown on me. I don't really have a motivation beyond "Because I want to." While I do want to learn at least a dozen languages, I realize this isn't particularly realistic, especially if I haven't learned a new one yet. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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