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Esperanto study group | ||
Tags: Study Group | Esperanto | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| 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 1 of 20 21 April 2008 at 1:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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Since there are quite a few members here with Esperanto on their to-do list, I want to let you know that I will be heading a study group on Lernu that starts on Wednesday and lasts till August 6th. At a relaxed pace of 1 lesson per week, you should at least be conversational at the end of it, and at the level where you can improve just by using the language. Participation in the study group is free and so are the materials, as we will rely on Lernu's multimedia courses. Please join in! http://www.lernu.net/komunikado/forumo/forumo.php?f=27
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| ZeroTX Groupie United States Joined 6139 days ago 91 posts - 100 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 2 of 20 21 April 2008 at 2:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have an idea of what this language is... but I'm curious as to what people use it for?
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| awake Senior Member United States Joined 6640 days ago 406 posts - 438 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Spanish | Message 3 of 20 22 April 2008 at 5:42am | IP Logged | ||
Those of us who speak Esperanto use it for the same things we use other languages for. We make friends, discuss politics, hobbies, current events, movies, books, etc... People use it to argue, to fall in love (there are many stories of people whose only common language is Esperanto meeting and ending up married), to tell bad jokes, to learn new things and everything else under the sun. Although this is a matter of opinion, it's one shared by many: Esperanto is a beautiful, expressive, and amazingly flexible language. Esperanto also has a significant body of literature (both original works and works in translation). Another highlight of Esperanto is the the "Passport service". As an "international" language, Esperanto's users are spread out across the globe. The passport service is a list of esperanto speakers around the world (in many major cities) that are willing to have other esperantists visit and stay with them in their homes for free. So if you like to travel, it can save you a lot of money in hotel costs. More than that, If you visit a country, especially one where you don't speak the native language, you're somewhat limited in how much of the country you can really experience. But if you stay with an esperantist who lives in the city you are visiting, you have a guide to the best features, museums, restaurants, etc... that the city has to offer. A lot of people also like to use Esperanto as a bridge to learning other languages. There have been studies that show that if you learn Esperanto first, learning other languages later becomes much easier. Partly that's simply because learning languages is a skill, and as you learn them you'll develop that skill and be better at it (and as one of the easiest languages in the world to learn it's an ideal choice to start building that skill). Also, because of the way Esperanto is designed, it teaches you about how languages are put together when you learn it. I was surprised to see how much better I understood the grammar and structures of my native language after I learned Esperanto. There is a downside to Esperanto. There's an old joke prayer about religion, "God, please save me from your followers" :). Esperanto has no country, or government or real money behind it. It's spread through word of mouth and grass roots efforts. And, a few of its users can be overly enthusiastic/preachy about trying to spread it. That creates a backlash among some who resent that, and so you'll find a few people out there who are very vocal about it being a waste of time. It's certainly not for everyone, but I think most people who give it a fair shot and try to learn it with an open mind will be amazed at how fast they can learn it and how much fun they can have with it. :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ZeroTX Groupie United States Joined 6139 days ago 91 posts - 100 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 4 of 20 22 April 2008 at 8:34am | IP Logged | ||
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Interesting... I appreciate all the details. So I gather that the idea is to have a universal language without national borders that you can use in any nation or culture. I like the thought. I'm not sure that learning Esperanto is for me, though. I just don't know that the effort involved would pay off for me. I'd rather learn languages specific to nations I'll be visiting. In my case, that will probably be Mexico and Latin America in general. Someday perhaps Italy, Germany, France, Portugal or Brazil. So I think my priorities right now are going to be Spanish (in progress), German, Italian, Portugese and French (in that order). Of course that could change by tomorrow :) I also have an aspiration (with no real reason) to learn Mandarin, but I don't know that I'll ever travel to China, so this is probably not entirely useful since most Chinese who come here immediately work to learn English.
In fact... I almost think that the idea of Esperanto -- a universal language --- is being satisfied by the widespread use of English in virtually every country in the world. I venture to say you'd find it easier to find an English speaker in any country you can name vs. an Esperanto speaker. If you're dealing with hotels, taxis or tourist sites, it's all the more likely. Besides the obvious usage in the United States, England, most of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc, it is also widely spoken across the entire African continent and India. While Chinese might outnumber English speakers, they don't have the geographic spread. I feel blessed to be a native English speaker, especially as English replaces French as the "international" language. Of course, I guess there are hold-outs who begrudge the language because of its origins with England and some of the bitterness of their imperialism (or capitalism or non-muslim-ism or whatever) exist... so maybe Esperanto would win out in that case. Except to me, it still has a "latin flavor" to it (from what I have seen of it from the link you provided). I don't know much about it, but if you're gonna learn a latin-sounding language, why not go with Spanish, which is the 3rd most spoken language in the world? (or is it 2nd?) -Michael 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 5 of 20 22 April 2008 at 11:08am | IP Logged | ||
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Go travelling a bit and you'll notice that unfortunately English is not nearly as common as statistics might have you believe. Airports and hotels and a few touristy shops make it a point to have English-speaking staff of course, and charge you the 'tourist tax' in return. But as soon as you go into a regular shop or a restaurant you will likely be using hands and feet. This is all the more true outside of Europe. On the one hand, English is so hard that you can find people in China who have studied it for 12 years and still can't make themselves understood (or actually just look at Texas / Northern Ireland / India / English-speaking place of your choice). On the other hand, knowledge of English is deliberately kept away from all but the upper classes.
Esperanto was developed before English became the next world language and it will still be there when English gets replaced by Chinese or Hindi or whatever. Esperanto would be the ideal world language, since it has been proven that it can be learned 5 times faster than English and excellent courses are available to anybody anywhere for free. It is also more neutral, putting me and that guy from China on the same footing, neither of us having to awkwardly use the other's language, stuttering, not being able to express all we want, blushing when we get caught making a mistake. Esperanto has been described as a linguistic handshake. And people don't learn it because they have to, it's always personal choice. There are a lot of different reasons to learn it, as Awake described and as has been discussed a lot of times on this forum. I personally learned it when I was 14 and my reason was mere curiosity or maybe a collector's feeling of "if it's really that easy, I can learn it nearly effortlessly and add it to my list". Now I've used it to find accomodation and local friends in Lithuania, Spain, Sweden, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada and China; I've even attended a seminar on search engine optimisation entirely in Esperanto and discussed database structure for big server arrays with one of Europe's leading experts. Esperanto added a lot more value to my life than I expected it to. However, if your goal is only to travel to South America, Spanish and Portuguese (and possibly Guaraní and Quechua and Aymara and Dutch and French, depending on where you travel) are probably more worthwhile in the short term. Esperanto isn't meant to stop all language learning; it's more like a solution if you can't expect to be reasonably fluent in the languages of the countries you want to travel to by the time you travel to them, or if you want to make friends among the locals. Like in my case, I try to learn all kinds of languages, even on short notice, but I still wasn't anywhere near conversational in Lithuanian when I got called there for a conference. Or my boyfriend, who just wanted to tour Europe for 6 months without spending his money on hotels and tourist traps. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bill Chapman Pentaglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6064 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto, Welsh, French | Message 6 of 20 22 April 2008 at 12:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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Newbie wroteabout Esperanto : "I like the thought". Esperanto is more than just a good idea. I have used it in speech and writing for forty years. It one of my repertoire of languages - I speak French, German and Welsh too. It is simply impossible to learn the language of every country you go to. I have used Esperanto in Bulgaria, in Italy (including the Slovene-speaking part, in Finland, Croatia, Holland and so on. The chances of meeting and recognising a fellow-speaker by chance are fairly thin, although it does happen occasionally. I plan my travels in advance making use of a network of Esperanto speakers. One contact passes me on to the next, or gives me email addresses. I was given a guided tour of Milan exactly a year ago by an Esperanto-speaking lady with whom I had no other language in common.I have discussed satirical televion programmes in Sofia with an employee of a TV station, argued about religion and politics with a Slovene poet, taken an Indian visitor around North Wales and so on. I can't tell you how muchj it has enriched my life.
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| ZeroTX Groupie United States Joined 6139 days ago 91 posts - 100 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 20 22 April 2008 at 1:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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...but aren't you guys pre-arranging these meetings with Esperanto speakers? As Bill said, he plans trips in advance using the network of Esperanto speakers. As you said, it us highly unlikely you would ever have a chance meeting with an Esperanto speaker. I would argue that although English may not be as widespread as the statistics indicate, that I could easily pre-arrange a meeting with English speakers in any country in the world. Nowadays, that can be easily done through free resources like http://www.hospitalityclub.org or the 2 or 3 copycat websites out there. It is easy to identify an English speaker (or speaker of another common language) and pre-arrange to meet with them. Most of them will even offer you accomodations in their home for a night or two while showing you their city for free, in whatever common language you have. Certainly, Esperanto would work here, too, if you both speak it.
The easy-to-learn factor does intrigue me enough to want to investigate it further, but I guess a lot of the reasons I am learning another language is to communicate with lesser-educated individuals who I will likely encounter. These people are unlikely to speak Esperanto when they live only 200 miles from the U.S. or live right here in my neighborhood and still don't even speak English! Most don't even speak their native language at an educated level. Some here in the U.S. resent these people, but in my line of work (public education), it benefits me to be able to communicate with them. I think it'd be a lot more interesting if you could, in fact, find Esperanto speakers everywhere or even just at "information booths" and that type of thing, so you can reach out when you're at the end of your rope. I assume this is the Esperanto-movement objective. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 8 of 20 22 April 2008 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Of course we are pre-arranging those meetings... or at least calling them when we are in the area. When my flight from Montreal to Columbia via Newark got cancelled because of weather problems and I was suddenly stuck in Newark for the night, without hotel reservations and without any kind of assistance from the airline. I easily found an Esperanto speaker ready to host me on such really short notice. For me, it turned sure disaster into one of the most interesting nights I spent in the USA.
There is a kind of bond between Esperanto speakers, unlike anything I've seen for other languages. I guess it's mostly based on recognizing that we each made the same choice, that most of us share an interest in languages and foreign cultures or the like. This means that I could hope for some sympathy from any Esperanto speaker in Newark, regardless of whether he's actually in a hospitality network or not. I could not have contacted a random student of German, let alone a random English speaker ;-)
Actually, one of Esperanto's goals is to be there for the lesser-educated. When Esperanto was born, the lingua franca of the day was French. Europe's educated did not need Esperanto; they had been communicating in French for well over 50 years at that point. The rest of the people really needed Esperanto. They wanted to communicate across borders, too, but nobody intended to teach them French nor did most of them have the time and patience to teach it to themselves. The League of Nations (the equivalent of the UN at the time) itself had declared that common people were too stupid to learn another language and that international communication should be left to the elites. So when Esperanto brought forth the idea that everybody should be able to communicate with everybody else on the planet, it became very popular with ordinary people - and less popular with linguists and the elite. Even today you can find linguists or political leaders rejecting Esperanto because they don't believe that ordinary people can or should communicate with people in other countries. (Try "The Dangerous Language" by Ulrich Lins for a really interesting study of the history of Esperanto-to-government relations). Do you know why the People's Republic of China is banning Wikipedia except for the English part? It's because under their system, the only people who will come to know English in China are the elite, the well indoctrinated ones. If you want to hear a Chinese person with an own opinion, try Esperanto. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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