brian91 Senior Member Ireland Joined 5448 days ago 335 posts - 437 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French
| Message 1 of 10 01 March 2010 at 4:07pm | IP Logged |
Saluton, everyone
Do any of you learn Esperanto? I'm really interested in learning it, but there are few resources out there. For
example, only very old courses on Amazon and so forth.
Some questions: What is the best place to learn and chat in Esperanto online? Where can I get Esperanto
publications? Is Esperanto much easier to learn than, say, French if you are a native English speaker?
Thanks!
Brian, 18, Irlandia
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theallstar Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5806 days ago 81 posts - 85 votes Studies: Japanese, Esperanto
| Message 2 of 10 01 March 2010 at 5:31pm | IP Logged |
Saluton,
I've recently stepped up my Esperanto study. I'm assuming by "very old courses on Amazon" you're referring to the "Forgotten Books: Complete Grammar of Esperanto"? I'm working through this book at the moment and was shocked when I found out it was 100 years old! It seems very modern. I suspect it's one of the most complete books on Esperanto you can buy, missing out only on an audio component (which you can fill in with something like Radio Verda). It's also very cheap.
In terms of difficulty I'd say the language is way easier than French, especially if you know a bit of some European languages as you'll find lots of the vocabulary familiar. The grammar is also designed to be regular (and as yet I haven't found any exceptions).
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Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6474 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 3 of 10 01 March 2010 at 5:44pm | IP Logged |
Saluton Brian!
There are tons of materials available for studying Esperanto, but Esperanto is
traditionally weaker in the English-speaking countries. You can order all materials you
want from either the Universal Esperanto Association book
service based in Rotterdam or the
Flanders Esperanto League based
in Antwerp. You may prefer the latter because they have an English interface to the web
store. Both ship internationally.
Also, there's the strange case that because of excessive funding combined with a lot of
enthusiastic volunteers, free online materials for Esperanto are often better than
what's available by name publishers such as "Teach Yourself". See
this
article on my blog for a detailed guide to online resources[/url] .
Esperanto is definitely much easier than French; an English speaker can probably learn
it at least five times faster than French. Just go to this forum's learning log section
and see what those who are learning Esperanto are writing.
Good luck in your studies!
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brian91 Senior Member Ireland Joined 5448 days ago 335 posts - 437 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French
| Message 4 of 10 01 March 2010 at 6:53pm | IP Logged |
Thanks, guys. Yes, there only seem to be old books on Amazon. I've probably seen it before and will think of
ordering it.
Danke fur die Beratung, Sprachprofi. I love your blog and am exploring it now. I will probably take part in the Lernu
course again.
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ale.g81 Triglot Newbie Italy agintersys.com Joined 5387 days ago 4 posts - 5 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, Portuguese Studies: French, Russian, Esperanto
| Message 5 of 10 01 March 2010 at 7:23pm | IP Logged |
Hi everybody! I'd like to learn Esperanto too and I've borrowed from a friend the "Teach Yourself" book. I noticed it was first published back in 1957 and the current edition was issued in 1987. Could anybody tell me if this book is quite good, or if it's better for me to look elsewhere? I'd prefer to have a real book rather than an on-line course because I could read it during trips, even if I don't have an internet access.
Thanks for the help!
Edited by ale.g81 on 01 March 2010 at 8:36pm
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Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6443 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 6 of 10 01 March 2010 at 7:33pm | IP Logged |
There are fairly good resources for learning Esperanto. I consider lernu to be the best, especially if you can find an Esperanto speaker who's willing to also help you out/correct you.
The Teach Yourself book is ok. I don't personally like the series, but some people do - if you like them in general, the Esperanto one should be fine.
I think Sprachprofi addressed all the other questions.
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Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5673 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin
| Message 7 of 10 01 March 2010 at 9:34pm | IP Logged |
ale.g81 wrote:
Hi everybody! I'd like to learn Esperanto too and I've borrowed from a friend the "Teach Yourself" book. I noticed it was first published back in 1957 and the current edition was issued in 1987. Could anybody tell me if this book is quite good, or if it's better for me to look elsewhere? I'd prefer to have a real book rather than an on-line course because I could read it during trips, even if I don't have an internet access.
Thanks for the help! |
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I have the 1987 TYS Esperanto book. It is an excellent book - although I do not have the 1957 version to compare it with. My book did not, alas, come with Audio (my mother bought the book second hand for a highly inflated price as an xmas gift for me). To be honest, I found the audio on the internet and downloaded it.
In addition to this book, I very much enjoyed the very comprehensive video series "Pasporto Al La Tuta Mondo" which you can buy for 90 dollars/euros, and have also been released free of charge (legally I might add) onto Youtube. It is a wonderful follow on to the TYS book - and gives you great listening practice and general reinforcement.
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ale.g81 Triglot Newbie Italy agintersys.com Joined 5387 days ago 4 posts - 5 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, Portuguese Studies: French, Russian, Esperanto
| Message 8 of 10 01 March 2010 at 10:46pm | IP Logged |
Thank you very much for the answers!
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