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Esperanto study group

 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto Post Reply
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dmg
Diglot
Senior Member
Canada
dgryski.blogspot.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 7015 days ago
555 posts - 605 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Dutch, Esperanto

 
 Message 9 of 20
22 April 2008 at 9:46pm | IP Logged 
I've been flip-flopping back and forth on learning Esperanto for a while now. However, after coming up on my 3 year anniversary of studying French I've decided to take a bit of break. I've decided to fill that break with Esperanto.

A quick question Sprachprofi: What do you think of the Assimil Esperanto course? I've seen two negative comments about it in the forum ("terrible dialogs" and "worst Assimil course" I believe) and I was wondering if you could give a better evaluation or at least find out the general Esperantist opinion of it. The reason I'm asking it I can get it for $10 at the used bookstores near me and was wondering if it's worth it. I went through "New French with Ease" and loved it.

I've already registered for Lernu and have done the first two lessons of "Mi estas komencanto". See you at the study group!
1 person has voted this message useful



Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6443 days ago
4474 posts - 6726 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 10 of 20
23 April 2008 at 4:02am | IP Logged 
dmg wrote:

A quick question Sprachprofi: What do you think of the Assimil Esperanto course? I've seen two negative comments about it in the forum ("terrible dialogs" and "worst Assimil course" I believe) and I was wondering if you could give a better evaluation or at least find out the general Esperantist opinion of it. The reason I'm asking it I can get it for $10 at the used bookstores near me and was wondering if it's worth it. I went through "New French with Ease" and loved it.


I'm not Sprachprofi, and I've voiced a negative opinion of Assimil Esperanto before, but for $10 I'd recommend buying it and forming your own opinion. It doesn't cover all that much, the dialogs are stilted, and the intonation is odd, but it's not the worst course I've ever seen.

1 person has voted this message useful



awake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6640 days ago
406 posts - 438 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Esperanto, Spanish

 
 Message 12 of 20
23 April 2008 at 5:49am | IP Logged 
StultusS
     Esperanto is an example of what is known as a constructed language. It was created in the late 1800's by a
man named L. Zamenhoff.   He lived in Poland, in a city where there were four distinct ethnic groups each with
their own language. He noticed that the inability of those groups to communicate amongst themselves led to
suspicion and sometimes even violence.   He saw his city as a microcosm for the rest of Europe and indeed the
rest of the world. He reasoned that if everyone in the world spoke the same second language (not giving up
their own language/cultural identity but rather having a new international language to make communicating with
others easier) that people in different countries would better be able to work together to solve the problems
facing the world.   He realized that existing languages (French, English, even Latin, etc...) were too difficult for
most people to learn and maintain. So he set out to design an entirely new language. And he designed it from
the ground up to be easy to learn, yet as rich and flexible as any natural language. The result was a language
that can be learned to a very high proficiency in a few months, and indeed can be learned well enough to
actually use in a few weeks. One can master Esperanto 5 to 10 times faster than other languages.

Since that time, Esperanto has had to overcome a lot of obstacles (over the years several governments have
actively suppressed it (puting its speakers in prison). There's also no real financial backing behind it. But still it
keeps growing and spreading. It probably won't become a language that everyone learns (as Zamenhoff hoped
for). However, it is now spoken by hundreds of thousands of people around the world. And there are now
Esperanto speakers in Every country and most major cities (and quite a few small towns).

There are a lot of information and free courses to learn Esperanto available at the
English Lernu or the   Russian Lernu websites.
1 person has voted this message useful



Leopejo
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Italy
Joined 6113 days ago
675 posts - 724 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, Finnish*, English
Studies: French, Russian

 
 Message 14 of 20
23 April 2008 at 6:53am | IP Logged 
awake wrote:
StultusS
     Esperanto is an example of what is known as a constructed language. It was created in the late 1800's by a
man named L. Zamenhoff.   He lived in Poland, in a city where there were four distinct ethnic groups each with
their own language. He noticed that the inability of those groups to communicate amongst themselves led to
suspicion and sometimes even violence.   He saw his city as a microcosm for the rest of Europe and indeed the
rest of the world. He reasoned that if everyone in the world spoke the same second language (not giving up
their own language/cultural identity but rather having a new international language to make communicating with
others easier) that people in different countries would better be able to work together to solve the problems
facing the world.   He realized that existing languages (French, English, even Latin, etc...) were too difficult for
most people to learn and maintain. So he set out to design an entirely new language. And he designed it from
the ground up to be easy to learn, yet as rich and flexible as any natural language. The result was a language
that can be learned to a very high proficiency in a few months, and indeed can be learned well enough to
actually use in a few weeks. One can master Esperanto 5 to 10 times faster than other languages.

Since that time, Esperanto has had to overcome a lot of obstacles (over the years several governments have
actively suppressed it (puting its speakers in prison). There's also no real financial backing behind it. But still it
keeps growing and spreading. It probably won't become a language that everyone learns (as Zamenhoff hoped
for). However, it is now spoken by hundreds of thousands of people around the world. And there are now
Esperanto speakers in Every country and most major cities (and quite a few small towns).

There are a lot of information and free courses to learn Esperanto available at the
English Lernu or the   Russian Lernu websites.

Thank you for your explanation, Awake. And forgive StultusS who just wants to be stultus (I don't know that in Esperanto). :-D
1 person has voted this message useful



remush
Tetraglot
Groupie
Belgium
remush.beRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6272 days ago
79 posts - 94 votes 
Speaks: French*, Esperanto, English, Dutch
Studies: German, Polish

 
 Message 15 of 20
23 April 2008 at 12:33pm | IP Logged 
StultusS wrote:

I've been thinking of learning Esperanto for some time, too. Why is the intonation odd? What is the correct intonation then? In which country is Esperanto spoken?


I am French speaking. I used many different books to learn English, German, Dutch and Esperanto, among them Assimil (all four languages). The Esperanto Assimil brought me far further than the Assimils in the other three languages, even if I felt that some words were not really useful for a beginner (and perhaps for an advanced learner).
The pronunciation and intonation were (if I remember well) absolutely correct, certainly not like British are usually speaking (pronouncing all vowels like diphthongs, what is particularly unpleasant if you don't know English). I certainly recommend it just to get rid of that habit,what is also useful in many many other languages.
Of course one book will bring you only that far as it can. It's better to buy one or two others once you feel you are ready for it.
Remember Esperanto started to spread just after the publication of a very thin booklet: La Fundamento de la Internacia Lingvo.
Even if some are finding that it is outdated and our current learning methods are more appropriate, I think that for people who already master several other languages, it is a piece of cake to rush through it and get a very good knowledge of the Esperanto grammar. It is in fact all an educated man needs to have a solid base to practise the language.
I wrote a fast path in Memoru la Fundamenon.
Feel free to ask for help to remush (at) remush (dot) be. (you need Firefox and a large screen to work comfortably).
There are lots of other tools available online, one for every taste.

More specifically about the intonation. Zamenhof was polish and the posody he had in mind was the polish one (the Russian is somewhat similar). The stress is on the antepenultimate syllable, and words are mildly stressed. It enables poles to speak very fast without hacking their words like Germans do. In a course for beginners you should not expect that kind of speed (listen to Radio Polonia. Many Esperantists speak very slowly and take care to articulate distinctly specially when they speak to beginners or in formal meetings. The prosody then is closer to Italian than to Polish.
1 person has voted this message useful



TDC
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6925 days ago
261 posts - 291 votes 
Speaks: English*, Mandarin, French
Studies: Esperanto, Ukrainian, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Persian

 
 Message 16 of 20
24 April 2008 at 8:33am | IP Logged 
To me the Assimil Esperanto audio sounds like Esperanto being spoken with a French accent. The "R"s are pronounced in both a trilled way and the French way and there isn't one standard. But, the dialogs that I listened to did seem generally okay. There are, however, tons of other stuff you can use. Lernu has a lot. Be sure to find Gerda malaperis! and look for La junaj trezorsercxantoj.


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