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Esperanto - Do People Really Use It? | ||
Tags: Usefulness | Esperanto | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| catullus_roar Quadrilingual Octoglot Groupie Australia Joined 4566 days ago 89 posts - 184 votes  Speaks: Malay, Hokkien*, English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese*, French, German, Spanish Studies: Italian, Latin, Armenian, Afrikaans, Russian | Message 1 of 32 17 June 2012 at 12:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm curious about the actual use of Esperanto, especially in Europe. Europeans on this forum - do you find yourself using Esperanto as a language to communicate with people from other countries in informal situations (eg. on a street)? Or would you rather switch to another lingua franca, like French or Spanish (just examples). Have you ever been approached in Esperanto? :) It's a language which is quite mysterious here in Asia, and so I'd like to hear more stories or examples about it in action, as well as perspectives on whether it is indeed widely used in casual situations. :)
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| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5451 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 2 of 32 17 June 2012 at 1:02pm | IP Logged | ||
I don't think so. I can't remember ever being approached in another language than the national or local language (or a closely related one, like Swedish in Norway) or in one of the "big" ones: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish. On the other hand, I don't know Esperanto and I don't know how it sounds, so I would probably be unable to recognise it if it was spoken to me... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| MarcusOdim Groupie Brazil Joined 4845 days ago 91 posts - 142 votes | Message 3 of 32 17 June 2012 at 4:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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I remember watching TV3 from Catalonia (or was it a German channel?) and they made a report about a group of people from Belgium studying it and talking to a few people from other countries, like Spain.
I've never been approached in Esperanto, but I can recognize several words. I've never really read thoroughly about it, but I still find it silly to learn this language to communicate with people from other countries, just any major language and you're fine, "Lord English" is here to get that job done. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fiziwig Senior Member United States Joined 4863 days ago 297 posts - 618 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 4 of 32 17 June 2012 at 8:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was first exposed to Esperanto in 1957 when I was in school. Even at the tender age of 12 my first reaction was to notice all things about the language that needed to be fixed before it could become really useable. That's still my impression of it. It needs a lot of tinkering and fixing to make it useable.
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| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 5 of 32 17 June 2012 at 9:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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To the title- yes people use it inside the community and they are really enthusiastic
about it. Unlike most artificial languages, Esperanto can give you the same things as other languages, just in smaller amounts. There are books music, classes, textbooks, speakers using it and often prefering it to other foreign languages when both sides can speak it. To the post- no, I have never been approached in Esperanto in the street. It isn't widely used because most people do not believe it could be used at all and therefore don't even consider learning it, when it comes to choosing a language. They prefer to fail at English for the tenth time to trying Esperanto. It is sad because Esperanto could have a lot of use inside Europe (considering many people have trouble with learning natural foreign languages and therefore miss a lot of opportunities, both personal and professional). It would just need more support, which it is very unlikely to ever get. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 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 6 of 32 18 June 2012 at 12:07am | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah, it's used inside the community. For most speakers it's also a cultural unity, so while you have to seek for Esperanto speakers, they'll often be willing to help you/spend time with you just because you speak Esperanto. It's also easier to find someone in your hometown with whom to practice on a regular basis, as opposed to finding a native speaker of your target language. Even a fluent speaker is likely to speak it as an L2, so they'd also consider practice desirable. I imagine a native speaker would only be interested if he/she misses speaking their native language.
A specific example: I've used Esperanto more than I've used Portuguese or Italian. In fact I haven't used them at all in Russia. I use them online way more than I ever tried to use Esperanto though, as most things available in natural languages (my list in your thread) are more interesting. I don't love Esperanto enough to be excited about things BECAUSE they're in Esperanto. What else... when I started learning it, it was because I had heard that it gets easier after 5 languages or so. I wanted to have one more under my belt. I did reach the intermediate level and for now I feel like Esperanto has fulfilled its role in my life. I could've reached fluency but I got discouraged when I contacted the Esperanto club in Moscow, in Esperanto, and they couldn't understand that I didn't want classes, I wanted to know whether there are any events where you can simply practise speaking Esperanto. Perhaps my writing was kinda bad... 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6907 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 32 18 June 2012 at 12:34am | IP Logged | ||
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Just as Cavesa says, Esperanto is highly used inside the community, there are big meetings every year, several societies and so on, but whatever the Esperantists themselves say, you won't randomly bump into a speaker in the street. It just won't happen.
If you're a speaker yourself, you probably know where to find like-minded souls. However, you stand a greater chance getting use for German, French or any of the other big languages, in any random city in Europe, down to the smallest village. If the speakers themselves don't wear the green star and the shops don't have the Esperanto flag sticker in the window, how would anyone know where it's "useful"? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6437 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 8 of 32 18 June 2012 at 1:35am | IP Logged | ||
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Esperanto is usable, without any need for 'tinkering' or 'fixing', and it is used. I speak it with people from all over the world, and have a book case full of books in it, which I enjoy reading. Some tens of thousands of books have been published in Esperanto.
It's not a widely-spoken language; optimistic estimates suggest about 2 million speakers, and quite a few speakers refuse to believe that number. The only time people get approached on the street in Esperanto seems to be near Esperanto events. At a train station a train ride away from a small town where a meeting is about to take place, or a few blocks away from accommodations, I've run into people approaching me in Esperanto. A friend of mine has been approached in fluent Esperanto in a large city when the largest Esperanto event, the Universala Kongreso, was being held there, and I think he was fairly far from the event itself but was wearing an Esperanto symbol - and the person who approached him wasn't attending the event. Basically, Esperanto is used at Esperanto events, and between friends that speak Esperanto. There are a few people I speak exclusively in Esperanto with, and others where I switch back and forth depending on what we happen to feel like speaking at the time. It's a stretch to call it widely spoken: rather, it's enthusiastically spoken, and there are speakers in most areas, although often not very many. There are plenty of events where you can just practice speaking Esperanto, including in Russia; only the hassle of needing to get a visa has kept me from going to ones in Russia. I don't generally approach people in Esperanto; the odds of them speaking it are too small. If I'm trying to communicate with someone in Europe, I'll try English, German, Italian, broken fragments of French or Dutch, or a few words of Hungarian/Russian/other languages I speak very little of in a pinch. I occasionally mention Esperanto, but usually don't bother, and haven't had anyone take me up on using it in random situations. Esperanto is used in Asia. Japan has a relatively big Esperanto community, which also publishes quite a few books. China radio international has an Esperanto website, but Esperanto seems less grassroots in China. There are often at least a couple of Japanese people at Esperanto events in Europe, while I meet fewer Chinese Esperanto speakers. Edit: Here are some Esperanto events occurring in 2012. It's not a comprehensive list. Next week, events include the third Mongolian Esperanto Congress in Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia. Also, here's an idea of some technical material available in Esperanto: Scienca kaj Teknika Esperanto-Biblioteko. For an English-language overview of original Esperanto fiction/literature, check out Geoffrey Sutton's "Concise Encyclopedia of the Original Literature of Esperanto." Another edit: for the sake of clarity - I do use Esperanto on the street, and sometimes fairly often. But the people I use it with are my friends who speak it, or people I'm at an event with; I've never had a random stranger speak it with me unexpectedly, far from any event. Edited by Volte on 18 June 2012 at 11:37am 11 persons have voted this message useful |
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