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It's got to stop

od sudanglo, 21. októbra 2011

Príspevky: 38

Jazyk: English

robbkvasnak (Zobraziť profil) 22. októbra 2011 22:50:03

Everbody here should know that Razlem has created a new language together with some other people. I looked at it. It has a strange resemblence to Volapük. It follows the patterns of Esperanto grammar but uses other letters for the endings. It purports to be more international due to the wide range of languages that they took the roots from. I hope that I never have to learn it because it would mean a lot of vocabulary memorization. Many of the Esperanto roots are now fairly international (though not all). Dennis Keefe has been holding Esperanto Insulo university courses for some years. (This January-February again.) he reports that his Chinese (and one Vietnamese) students finish the 8-week course fluent in Esperanto.

robbkvasnak (Zobraziť profil) 22. októbra 2011 22:55:16

I might add that I grew up as a bilingual (German and American English). Neither of these languages made me aware of grammar because I spoke them without study. High school Latin gave me a concept of grammar but I never learned how to say "Where is the bathroom?" in Latin. Esperanto, on the other hand, helped me communicate with my roommates in Lausanne (Switzerland) after just 3 days of study. Of course, we weren't very grammatical in Eo but we understood each other. That is the reason that we learned it. Once I became fluent in French we all sort of forgot about Esperanto. I came back to it thanks to people who are negative about it (like one person on this list).

RiotNrrd (Zobraziť profil) 22. októbra 2011 23:04:47

I haven't looked at Razlem's language, and know nothing about it. One thing I do know, however, is that this is not an appropriate place in which to criticize it.

Amike.

razlem (Zobraziť profil) 22. októbra 2011 23:22:48

RiotNrrd:One thing I do know, however, is that this is not an appropriate place in which to criticize it.
+1

If you wish to discuss it, then contact me via PM or on the Unilang forums.

As far as the Esperanto study goes, I just would have liked to see more data. Perhaps if/when I get the chance, I'll redo this experiment myself with more languages. rido.gif

ZMan (Zobraziť profil) 23. októbra 2011 1:20:41

I would like to indicate some points about how Esperanto is best as second language:

1. It's much easier to learn than other languages.

2. It is so regular that it's speakers get a better point of view of the languages, forgetting particularities of their native languages.

3. (For Indoeuropean languages only) It gives a nice vocabulary to begin with.

erinja (Zobraziť profil) 23. októbra 2011 1:50:24

robbkvasnak:Esperanto, on the other hand, helped me communicate with my roommates in Lausanne (Switzerland) after just 3 days of study.
I'd love to discuss this with you, either privately or in a new forum thread. I'm currently writing a new course aimed at backpackers, which is intended to get people communicating basic needs as quickly as possible (like for use in hostels, between backpackers without a common language).

Donniedillon (Zobraziť profil) 24. októbra 2011 0:57:53

erinja:I'm currently writing a new course aimed at backpackers, which is intended to get people communicating basic needs as quickly as possible (like for use in hostels, between backpackers without a common language).
This is great to hear! I look forward to seeing it.

erinja (Zobraziť profil) 24. októbra 2011 20:45:14

Donniedillon:This is great to hear! I look forward to seeing it.
The idea is that the course would be available in downloadable form, and also in printed booklets available for free at youth hostels. Backpackers could stick the printed copy in their pack (or read it on their smartphone or computer) and learn as they travelled.

I had an idea, perhaps a somewhat dumb one, of working up a draft of the course, and then enlisting a couple of people without a common language to look at my course for an hour or two, and then try to have a Skype conversation to see how far they got. Or else a similar trial in an actual youth hostel. I have no pedagogical background so I'm only guided by my experience as a person who speaks Esperanto and who knows the kinds of things that people talk about in youth hostels.

Anyone with a better idea of how to test this course practically before printing up a zillion copies should let me know!

ceigered (Zobraziť profil) 25. októbra 2011 1:09:08

erinja:I had an idea, perhaps a somewhat dumb one, of working up a draft of the course, and then enlisting a couple of people without a common language to look at my course for an hour or two, and then try to have a Skype conversation to see how far they got. Or else a similar trial in an actual youth hostel. I have no pedagogical background so I'm only guided by my experience as a person who speaks Esperanto and who knows the kinds of things that people talk about in youth hostels.
Education background or not, that plan seems great to me. When in doubt, experiment! ridulo.gif

You'll also get a good indication of whether it seems to work or not. Whether they'd be on equal terms with your standard EO learner is debatable, and I'd even go as far as saying not to focus too much on the nitty gritty even if that leads to the backpackers speaking in some sort of pidgin dialect, because I imagine backpackers are pretty flexible linguistically and that the most important thing is communicating needs etc with or without grammatical accuracy, but also since they're probably cut off from a larger course, they'd only need basic structural cues while they augment their vocabularies with words picked up on journeys.

Of course, that might be a pedagogical nightmare for people aiming to get people to speak professional sounding Esperanto, but for getting a trio of backpackers of different origins to communicate it works well enough okulumo.gif (heck, that's how traders etc used to do it in the good ol' days before internet....)

erinja (Zobraziť profil) 25. októbra 2011 1:35:48

My idea was to include in the booklet enough vocabulary and stock phrases that you could put together a broken Esperanto for basic communication -- but also enough grammar (in a separate reference section) that if you wanted to know these grammatical details, it is available to you. Obviously it won't be the PMEG but I'm hoping that you'd be able to use it to reach a B1 level. It will contain a glossary of words that are mathematically the most common in Esperanto, plus additional words relevant to travellers.

Nahor