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Esperanto a waste of time? | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| QHealer Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5480 days ago 7 posts - 7 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Studies: Japanese | Message 65 of 351 24 November 2009 at 8:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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How do you esperantists, convince others to learn esperanto, I already want to learn it after I'm fluent in Spanish, but I want to convince my brother.
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| davidwelsh Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5527 days ago 141 posts - 307 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, Norwegian, Esperanto, Swedish, Danish, French Studies: Polish, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Pali, Mandarin | Message 66 of 351 29 November 2009 at 8:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yes, it really is. English is an extremely difficult language to learn, and there are a great many people in the world who have devoted several hours a week to learning it over 7, 8 or more years and are still unable to communicate in it effectively. English functions as an international language for you, and that's fantastic of course. But you have a natural advantage in that your native language is very closely related to English, and you belong (presumably, as you're active on this website!) to the minority of the population that is relatively gifted at language learning. Of course it's great that you can speak to your Greek friend even though s/he doesn't speak Norwegian and you don't speak Greek. But you can't have a proper conversation in English with most Greeks because they don't speak English well enough. And as an English native speaker living in Oslo I can say that even in Norway, one of the countries with the highest levels of English language skills in the world, many people's actual communicative abilities outside of everyday situations are quite limited. Only 10% of the world's population speak English, and it's not realistic to think that that figure is going to grow to give the majority of the world's population the same kind of experience of intercultural communication you have with your Greek friend. And even if it was possible, it would require a massive investment of time and energy on the part of, say, the Chinese, whose language is very different to English. Learning Esperanto would require about 10-20% of the time and energy of learning English. To expect huge swathes of the world's population to struggle to learn English when they could be speaking Esperanto in a fraction of the time seems deeply unfair to me. Esperanto would also be more inclusive. There are many people in the world who weren't lucky enough to have a Germanic language as their mother tongue, and who don't have the linguistic aptitude to master English. Such people could though master Esperanto. English functions beautifully as an international language for an economic and cultural elite. The raison d'être of Esperanto is to open up these opportunities to everyone. Esperanto would of course not replace English, or French, or Spanish, or any of the other languages that people use to communicate across cultures. It would though give us one basic common international language that was more equitable and more accessible to everyone in the world, regardless of race, mother tongue, linguistic aptitude or economic background. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5519 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 67 of 351 29 November 2009 at 9:01pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
English is not an "extremely difficult language to learn". In fact, basic conversation is much easier than in many other languages. If you worry so much about fairness, why do you promote a language that is much easier for Romance language speakers, and indeed other IE speakers? My biggest objection to your, all too common, argument, is this: It might take 5 minutes to learn Esperanto, but as long as it is entirely useless outside a very narrow sphere of enthusiasts, expecting people to spend even 5 minutes is to me more "unfair". Yes, I know there is a "passport" club for Esperantists so they can make friends with other enthusiasts, but you have the same thing for stamp collectors and train spotters and any subculture you'd care to consider. And many people aren't even interested in making online "friends" anyway. If they were, they'd join a dating agency or a friendship club. Basically, my point is that it doesn't matter how easy a language is to learn if you won't have any use for it. Edited by Gusutafu on 29 November 2009 at 9:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5907 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 68 of 351 29 November 2009 at 9:16pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I was referring to how some people find the dominance of English inherently problematic for political reasons. (I don't see the problem myself.) Some seem to be saying that though English plays a very helpful role in the world today, we should just say "to hell with that!" and all learn Esperanto instead.
Not everyone learns English - whether because they have no reason to, or don't want to, or try to learn it using bad methods so they don't end up ever speaking it well - and I don't have a problem with that at all. I don't think everyone in the world needs to be able to communicate with everyone else. All I'm saying is let's give English some credit for what it's done for us. People ARE saying it should replace English/French/Spanish for intercultural communication. Personal opinions about Esperanto aside (I find it remarkably unpleasant to look at and listen to) I agree that having one common language would be useful in many situations, but I don't think it's going to happen. I'm pretty convinced we're stuck with some non-neutral language or other. But honestly, I don't want to get into a discussion about the pros and cons of Esperanto. I'll leave that up to the people who are actually interested in the language. I'm just commenting because you quoted me, and I think the other side of the argument deserves consideration. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| davidwelsh Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5527 days ago 141 posts - 307 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, Norwegian, Esperanto, Swedish, Danish, French Studies: Polish, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Pali, Mandarin | Message 69 of 351 29 November 2009 at 9:49pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Well, that's quite a long discussion. All I can say is that as an EFL teacher for primarily African and Asian immigrants in Oslo I beg heartily to differ. For Swedish speakers of course, as I mentioned, it's relatively much easier:)
Because, although it's not absolutely fair, it's much fairer than the current setup. Yes, it's perhaps 10 times easier for an Italian to learn Esperanto than Chinese, and only 5 times easier for a Chinese to learn Esperanto than Italian, but it would still be a much fairer way of going about things.
That's quite true. I was just commenting on why I do think English being the standard language for international communication is a problem. For me, it represents a political unfairness that Esperanto would provide an elegant (although of course not perfect) solution to. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| davidwelsh Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5527 days ago 141 posts - 307 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, Norwegian, Esperanto, Swedish, Danish, French Studies: Polish, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Pali, Mandarin | Message 70 of 351 29 November 2009 at 9:58pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I don't think very many Esperantists would say that - I certainly wouldn't (if for no other reason than that I make my living as an English teacher!) I would just say that everyone learning Esperanto as well would be a great boost to intercultural communication and international understanding and solidarity.
That's an entirely realistic point of view of course - you're probably right. I'm just an idealist by temperament rather than a pragmatist and I see Esperanto as an elegant solution to a real set of problems:) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5907 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 71 of 351 29 November 2009 at 10:17pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Fair enough. People's views on Esperanto are obviously very different. Personally I see it as a deliberate mangling of a collection of entirely alright languages - including the romance languages, several of which I consider very beautiful, so it pains me to see them turned into such a thing. I'm an idealist by nature too, and partly for that reason I just can't have anything to do with the language, I'm not feeling the love at all.
I wasn't quoting btw, it's just the impression I get from some people, which frankly makes the language even less palatable than it already is to me. If we ever get to a point where everyone is required to learn Esperanto, you will find me in the underground movement plotting to overthrow the government :-) I think you'd have difficulty arguing the usefulness of Esperanto for people who speak English well enough to get by and who travel mostly to places where they don't need anything else. Like, say, my parents. You just couldn't get them to do it. Also, I think people would question how well a language could fulfill the needs of all the complexities of human expression if being so easy is one of its main positive sides. 2 persons have 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 72 of 351 30 November 2009 at 5:50am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I must point out that it's sort of ironic that a native Swedish speaker would say something like "English is not difficult", because the people who learn English the best, and the most extensively in their countries, are people who speak another Germanic language...Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Dutch, German....those are the people who have the least trouble with English.
English speakers are much less common even amongst speakers of romance languages, are VASTLY less common anywhere else. When I was in china, for example, I discovered just how few people there speak any English. The only place I found good English speakers in the large city I was in, was at Pizza Hut (where they hired specifically for English skills), some large tourist attractions, a couple of people at the airport, and some students at the prestigious university. Absolutely everything else I did in China was not possible to do in English. This is where Esperanto really has a niche, as I see it, because it takes sooooo much less time to learn than English. It can allow people from many different language families to become *fluent* speakers in a common language, instead of halting non-conversational stock phrases in English, which is the level of most "English speakers" around the world. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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