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TAC 2010 - Splog goes for Esperanto | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5673 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes  Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 17 of 27 14 January 2010 at 3:26pm | IP Logged |
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Total time on Esperanto is 11 hours.
I am now on chapter 9 of the TYS book, and have also finished all the lessons in Mek Lecionoj. This means I am - thankfully - on schedule (or very slightly ahead of schedule on the audio stuff). The grammar has proven to be very easy - although I feel that the "-n" ending is overused, pretty much stuffing in every case that wants to distinguished from the nominative as far as I can tell. The other frustration has been that a lot of words are very similar: kio, kiu, kiel, etc - which has made it a pain to differentiate and remember them all. I think I am getting there now, but it was a more uncomfortable experience than I had anticipated. Apart from that, I now find that - considering only 11 hours have been spent with the language - I can read quite sophisticated stuff. My passive vocabulary seems to be surprisingly high. I put this down to three things: 1. I speak English and French quite well (which helps with a lot of vocabulary that has Latin roots) 2. I speak Czech and a bit of Polish (which helps with quite a bit more vocabulary that was clearly derived from Polish) 3. The composition rules mean that I can work a lot of things out by thinking hard about the fragments of an unfamiliar word My active vocabulary, though, remains pathetically small in comparison - maybe 200 words at most. This gap between passive and active vocabulary is much wider than I have experienced before. Of course, in many cases I could just make up a word - and probably be understood (assuming the listeners speak English, French, and a bit of Polish). For example, I have no idea how to say "Frog" in Esperanto, but would just guess - first trying "Frogo" and then "Jxabo" just to see if any of them caused a twinkle of recognition. Assuming that Esperanto speakers often speak several languages, this mutual guessing probably helps with communication even when plenty of non-authentic vocabulary is used. I wonder, then, if the ease of Esperanto come not just from the simplicity of the grammar, but also from the tolerance and forgiveness of imperfection among other Esperanto speakers. Anyway, I will be continuing with the TYS book for the next week or so, and also looking for a second audio course to follow on from Mek Lecionoj. And finally, to the question "Is learning Esperanto a waste of time?". So far, I have enjoyed the 11 hours invested. The rate of progress seems fast enough that even if I do decide one day that it has been a waste of time, then the time wasted has not been much at all. So, the cost seems low. Edited by Splog on 14 January 2010 at 3:35pm 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 18 of 27 14 January 2010 at 5:09pm | IP Logged |
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These words are supposed to be similar! They are part of a series of a priori vocabulary which follows strict rules. In Esperanto, they are most often called tabelvortoj (table words), because they form a neat table. In English, they're called correlatives. Read about them at http://en.lernu.net/lernado/gramatiko/konciza/korelativoj.ph p
I recommend learning the meaning of each prefix (ki-, i-, ti-, ĉi- and neni-) and suffix (-u, -o, -el, -am, -e, etc.) separately and then just inferring the meaning from there, e. g. ki+am = what+time = when. This way your learning units will all be very distinct, e. g. -u vs. -o, as opposed to kiu vs. kio, tiu vs. tio and so on. Note that "Ana Renkontas" and the German Esperanto course that was recommended earlier both have more challenging texts. But when you feel ready, you can also just open anything in Lernu's library or anything at http://libraro.co.cc/ and start reading authentic Esperanto! The on-click dictionary makes it feasible even when you're missing 1/3 of the words. Edited by Sprachprofi on 14 January 2010 at 5:13pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5673 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 19 of 27 14 January 2010 at 5:55pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you very much for the link of that table. So far, I have been trying to limit the material I am working with, but I can see that the table will be a great supplement to at this stage. You are very helpful!
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| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5571 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 20 of 27 14 January 2010 at 10:15pm | IP Logged |
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If I may make a couple recommendations, here is an excellent online Esperanto dictionary, and here is an excellent online Esperanto reference grammar (both in Esperanto).
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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 21 of 27 21 January 2010 at 5:35pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks Levi for those links, which I bookmarked and have been using over the past few days now.
Total time on Esperanto is now 17 hours, and I have been studying it for three weeks. I have finished the Teach Yourself book, and the beginners course that I found on Lernu. Progress through both was surprisingly fast, considering how slow my brain usually picks things up. I have also been using three new resources this week: 1: An old radio course I found on the Internet called "Jen Mia Mondo". This turned out to be quite delightful. I am only a few lessons into it, but find that the earlier courses have made this more of a "second pass" refresher. 2: The ANKI flashcards created by Sprachprofi. What has surprised me here is that usually two views of a flashcard seems sufficient for me to recollect something without problems (with the exception of one or two words which seem to refuse to stick). 3: The grammar at Lernu My overall impression is that I now have a pretty firm grasp of the grammar, and have a solid grasp of the prefixes, infixes, and suffixes (at least the most common ones). The result is that as of a couple of days ago, I realised that it is now mostly a question of increasing vocabulary and learning idioms. One great surprise has been not just how easily Esperanto is picked up, but how readily it seems to have internalised - so that I can now read quite a few things without having to do any kind of translation - rather, it has become direct understanding. This means I can read much more rapidly than in most other languages at this stage. The same is less true for listening - I still find myself pausing to think things through - but still, I do find my verbal comprehension is again higher than I would have expected. I also find that I can produce quite complicated expressions now - and keep them going for quite some time. This, again, I put down to the simplicity of the grammar. My limiting factor here is, of course, vocabulary. Not just because I have lots to learn, but because I see that the grammar rules allow plenty of words that would likely be understood, but that probably make little sense idiomatically. For example, the ability to produce geknaboj from the grammar rules seems to make infanoj redundant. Yet I see that infanoj is used everywhere. Likewise, I see that sxli can be used as a pronoun for a person of unspecified gender, but don't see why you can't just say geli (or gesxi for that matter). Are there tacit grammar rules at play? Despite these quibbles, I have been convinced by my own experience that the claims for quick pick-up of Esperanto are indeed true. What I have not noticed at all, though, is any impact on my other languages (other than making me realise how much more complicated they are). Perhaps I just need to be more patient. Edited by Splog on 21 January 2010 at 5:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5673 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 22 of 27 06 February 2010 at 12:55pm | IP Logged |
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Total time on Esperanto is now 29 hours.
Since my last update (two weeks ago) I have finished the Jen Mia Mondo course (it is quite good!) and have finished studying the grammar at Lernu. I have also been using ANKI each day, and have spent much more time reading stuff in Esperanto (rather than studying the language itself). I believe I now have a pretty good grasp of the grammar, including most of the prefixes, infixes, and suffixes. The only outstanding thing is building my vocabulary. Plenty of words turn out to be easy to guess once you have seen them. However, there are clearly still thousands of words ahead for me to learn. Rather than study them through word lists, I have moved onto "native materials" for natural acquisition. There is where I have hit a predictable stumbling block: there is not that much gripping stuff written in Esperanto. I find myself scrambling for stuff worth reading - and have now resorted to reading Alice in Wonderland in translation. So, although I now do agree that Esperanto has indeed proven to be very easy to learn, I am stuck wondering what to do with it. Sure, I will likely attend some conferences at some point - and I will keep learning vocabulary to live up to my one year commitment. However, once the year is up I imagine I will probably not do much with it. Primarily because I am not very interested in reading things in translation when the originals are so easily available, and a lot of the stuff written directly in Esperanto (e.g. fluffy poetry) is not appealing to me. The final point I was out to investigate: does learning Esperanto help with my study of other languages? So far, I haven't noticed that it does. The reverse is true of course, but that wasn't something unexpected. It is certainly true, though, that learning Esperanto has proven to be pleasantly stress-free so I suppose the relaxation is beneficial. EDIT: I would be very interested in finding audio books in Esperanto (even those in translation from other languages) - since at the moment I am primarily reading and lack sufficient listening practice. I believe there is an Esperanto radio station, which I will get to at some point, but for now some good books on Audio would be great to accompany me on my daily walks. Edited by Splog on 06 February 2010 at 1:00pm 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 23 of 27 06 February 2010 at 4:22pm | IP Logged |
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Congratulations on achieve this good a level after just 29 hours!!
I enjoy reading original literature in Esperanto, and also works translated from languages that I'm not planning on studying anytime soon (e. g. Georgian, Hungarian, African languages other than Swahili). The best place to find interesting original literature in Esperanto are the conferences and events, because there you can browse works much like you would in a book store and find things that are interesting to you. Failing that, you could order from bin/mal/Web_store/web_storeie.cgi">the Flandran Esperanto League or the Universal Esperanto Association, both of which operate a mail-order service for Esperanto books and ship from Europe. Click on "Katalogo" to browse. The Flandran Esperanto League created a list "Baza literaturo", which contains the original works that are considered the best by the Esperanto literature lovers. I can particularly recommend "Fajron sentas mi interne" (online version, be sure to skip the Antaŭparolo) because it does not use advanced word roots, but it does use affixes very well. You could do worse than imitating that style. Also, I found it an interesting read, because it is so brutally personal, unlike anything else I've read. For listening practise, try this list of Esperanto radio stations around the world. Unfortunately I'm not at all into audiobooks (I can't lean back and just listen without doing anything else), so I can't help you out there. Also, I highly recommend improving your conversational ability using this text chat or this voice/video chat, or any Skype partners you can find. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Lumulo Triglot Newbie CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6358 days ago 27 posts - 32 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, Italian Studies: Mandarin | Message 24 of 27 07 February 2010 at 5:11pm | IP Logged |
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I have not yet listened to an episode, but the following podcast was recently brought to
my attention via Twitter: http://esperanto.podomatic.com/ . Each episode will feature of a chapter of 'La Analektoj de Konfuceo'. In lieu of psychical Esperanto literature, which you can acquire either at Esperanto congresses or through online catalogs such as the ones Sprachprofi mentioned above, this could serve as listening material for the time being (although I would personally recommend that you turn to Pola Radio or Radio Verda for this purpose: http://www.polskieradio.pl/eo/, http://radioverda.com/) Benjameno 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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