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Esperanto a waste of time? | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6766 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 81 of 351 01 December 2009 at 12:13pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I tend to side with David Welsh in that there are students who lack the inspiration, time, or just plain intelligence to
make any headway on a language in school, although I agree that an excellent teacher and lots of one-on-one time (both a rarity in a public school) can improve the situation. The real problem is that language is a highly technical skill, and like painting or playing the piano, you require 10,000 hours of practice to get really good at it. "Several hours a week for 8 years" gives a student perhaps 1200 hours of study time. That's enough to develop basic conversational and literacy skills, but just a fraction of the time needed to actually master a language. As much as we may want to blame the educational system or the student's laziness for lack of language learning, it's quite understandable that people who aren't interested in languages will have other ways they want to spend those 10,000 hours. Edited by Captain Haddock on 01 December 2009 at 12:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5984 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese | Message 82 of 351 01 December 2009 at 1:12pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Yes, I agree with what was just said. Many students don't put in enough time, and it does take a lot of time to learn most languages. But the point I was trying to make was that there is some evidence that this amount is far less for Esperanto than for most other languages. There was apparently some sort of study in France that found that students there took 10x less time to get to a reasonable level in Esperanto than in English or German. Due to the grammar rules never having exceptions, the spelling being regular, and that a large vocabulary can be constructed from a small number of roots, Esperanto is much more efficient to learn, timewise.
This is what I see as its huge advantage; it's a very expressive language that's learnable in a fraction of the time. Combine that with its lack of a national bias, and it has distinct advantages for diplomacy and travel. The low barrier to entry is what makes it valuable. I can certainly understand why some people choose to spend their time studying other things, and I have lots of other interests in different cultures too, but it just seems to make sense to me right now to bang off 150 or so hours of Esperanto study and hopefully be quite good at it in that time. I don't have any illusion that Esperanto is going to replace any other languages, and I obviously still want to learn other languages, but that doesn't mean that Esperanto is worthless. It's a real language like any other, it just happens to be neutral and easy to learn. :) 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5519 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 83 of 351 01 December 2009 at 4:14pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Just don't put the star on the front of your jacket, at least not when travelling in Germany... The problem with the very common argument that Esperanto is a good way to make foreign friends (except that you can find people through many other hobbies as well) is that if Esperanto should ever become a large language, which most of the enthusiasts want, this will change. If there were hundreds of millions of Esperantists everywhere, the scene would change completely and you wouldn't be invited to someone's home just because you had a smattering of Esperanto. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5519 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 84 of 351 01 December 2009 at 4:22pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Exactly, even if Esperanto (or some other constructed language) were promulgated as the world language, most people still wouldn't learn it, because they are not interested in foreign connections anyway. Those who are, well, they already know English, Spanish or Chinese. It takes very long time to gain enough momentum for a language to start spreading itself, without government orders. And what are the odds that a coming world government would enforce Esperanto? If America somehow manages to cling on to their hegemony, they will surely advocate English. China probably would too, with Chinese as the second choice, but which superpower-to-be would choose Esperanto? Does anyone here seriously believe that Esperanto will ever be more than a hobby for a handful of enthusiasts, like kite-surfing or stamp collecting?
I don't think that the students are the problem, at least not in the obvious sense. I know of very few people who learnt a language in school, and I am quite sure that those who did actually didn't learn it thanks to the lessons, but due to their own efforts outside class. If you merely sit in class, do you homework and take your exams, you won't learn much. I took German for 8 years or so, got the highest grades, but still wasn't able to ask the way to the trainstation. I learnt more Chinese in one month on my own than I ever learnt German at school. As to your second point, you don't need to put in 10,000 or even 100 hours to gain very basic fluency, which is all you need to start reaping the fruits of language learning. It is is also enough for you to be able to start learning by using, through immersion or just reading. In school both teachers and students focus on grammar, they prefer to learn 5% of the language really well, to learning 80% in an approximate way. If children didn't open their mouth until they could say entire sentences with correct grammar, they would probably never speak at all.
This is only a potential advantage. As long as there are hardly any speakers at all, it doesn't matter how easy it is to learn.
It may be a real language, but it is not a language like any other. Unlike natural languages, it won't reveal much about the history of human language, speech or life in general. Studying Esperanto from a linguistic point of view makes little sense, except if you see it as an experiment. "What will happen to a constructed language over time". I am still very curious about what is meant by Esperanto being neutral, and why this is desirable. It would seem to me that something that was consciously constructed by one person, with very particular (and somewhat extreme) political views and ends, would be very much less neutral than a language with its origins probably as far back as mankind itself, and that has developed for aeons with input from generations of people with no particular end in mind at all. Edited by Gusutafu on 01 December 2009 at 4:43pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| alang Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7219 days ago 563 posts - 757 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 85 of 351 01 December 2009 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I actually encourage other people to learn on their own, but many seem to think it is impossible. Some rely too heavily on a teacher and believe the credentials of the teacher is enough. It is nice to read a teacher that encourages the students to continue and teach themselves. Splog, The students you teach can speak Czech pretty fluently in a few days. I think that is a very high level in a short period of time. What kind of testing levels are there to gage the students fluency? As I am interested in other methods. Which do you use? Continual progress is my goal and combining methods will help a great deal. I have been learning Spanish for a long time and I would consider myself basic fluency. I used Pimsleur and Michel Thomas initially. I studied Esperanto and thought it was easier and enjoyed it. If your teaching methods can do what you wrote, then it would help a great deal of learners, no matter which language. Edited by alang on 01 December 2009 at 4:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5667 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 86 of 351 01 December 2009 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Now we are in danger of thread hijacking. Anyway, remember these are folks who have been studying Czech for a couple of years or more. My approach would not work for absolute beginners. It is for people who have been studying for ages, but feel tongue-tied, where their knowledge seems trapped inside them. These are people who are frustrated that despite all their effort they still can usually only give one or two word answers to questions, and avoid conversations due to fear and embarrassment. What I do is get the fragments of knowledge out of them and teach them how to glue all the bits together and how to keep conversations flowing fluently. A few months ago I wrote a very short introduction to the way I go about helping people do this. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| alang Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7219 days ago 563 posts - 757 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 87 of 351 01 December 2009 at 6:11pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Thanks for the link Splog! It was a pretty good read.
Even though I have reached basic fluency in Esperanto and Spanish. There are times when I become hesitant. Even in my native language of English, as I sometimes forget or do not know words. Luckily in my case a lot of the roots in Esperanto helped me recognize many Spanish words. Just finding the exact word to leave my mouth was somewhat of a challenge. This is why I really like the word formation of Esperanto and synonyms in languages. They actually help the keep the conversation flowing. I have used Esperanto words at times with Spanish speakers and they understood what word I meant. Though not always, it still is a different language. Just like I have used Spanish words with an Italian speaker. Either way communication was achieved and it felt great. Edited by alang on 01 December 2009 at 6:12pm 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 88 of 351 01 December 2009 at 6:17pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Excellent page. Furyou_gaijin wrote about this as well, a while ago, but in much less detail. Thank you. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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