I'm at a stage now in my learning where I'm working through the graded reader in Richardson's Learning & Using book, with hefty supplementation of reading material from this website and others. I find myself comfortable reading most of the grammatical constructions I come across, but there's no way I would be able to form a similar sentence on the fly. There's no way I could write any but the simplest of sentences in a grammatically correct form.

I guess I'm wondering how you all learned the tricky, not English-like, grammatical parts of the langauge. If I just keep reading, will the patterns slowly but surely become ingrained in my brain? Or is there a better, faster way I should be approaching this?

Maybe you can absorb the patterns of the language through reading, but my guess is that the best way to acquire active command of the language is trying to speak it, and in particular trying to express something in Esperanto that you actually want to say, rather than just rehearsing textbook exercises.

That's fine in sentiment, but I can't see that working without a feedback loop -- which I don't have. It is easy enough to speak Esperanto to a vacuum, but my errors would persist. I'm not sure how that would help.

sudanglo:Maybe you can absorb the patterns of the language through reading, but my guess is that the best way to acquire active command of the language is trying to speak it, and in particular trying to express something in Esperanto that you actually want to say, rather than just rehearsing textbook exercises.

xdzt, I am frustrated too. I go to the 'In Esperanto' forums sometimes in the hope that doing that will help me with reading and forming my own sentences. But I'm learning to be very careful. The Esperanto being used on some of those forums is sometimes not very good. For example, experienced speakers on the 'In English' forum tell us to avoid the compound tenses and they often go to great lengths to explain why the simplier tenses are better -- yet compound tenses are common on those forums. Sentence construction and grammar on those forums is often poor. I see -ig- attached to transitive verbs quite a lot.

My knowledge of Esperanto is basic, yet I see many of the mistakes. What does that tell you? I have tried to take threads from some of the 'In Esperanto' forums and rewrite them -- put them in my own words and avoid the compound tenses. But there are times that I just cannot follow the thoughts of the thread writers.

I ask myself, "Is it just me?" "Is it my lack of knowledge that is preventing my understanding?" Then I see experienced Esperantists say that they are frustrated with the bad usage that they see everyday and I begin to get some idea of what they are talking about.

Some experienced users tell us to write, write, write. I have no doubt that that is good advice. But whenever I try that, I inevitably get bogged down with sentence construction that I cannot seem to get out of. When you've dug yourself into a hole, it is best to stop digging.

I cannot answer your question because I am having the same problems myself and I don't know the answer. I recently took the basic-level exam and did well with it. This establishes me as a basic user. But there is no way that I could successfully take the intermediate-level exam and pass it. So my level of Esperanto is basic and maybe, just maybe, slightly higher. But how do I increase that proficiency? I hope someone else has some ideas.

Keep plugging away at it, that is all I can tell you.

I do not know if this helps but I am at about the same point myself. I have found it works best to think of the sentences like an equation for say an integral function. Assign certain parts of speech a value then work back to a complete sentence(the full equation). As i said this might not work well it depends on how your brain works. Mine handles equations well but is terrible at grammar helped by a certain lack of education in English grammar in US high school.

I'd like to throw out an idea or two about Lernu and I want to say that I am NOT complaining or being critical of Lernu in any way.

There are three exams available: Basic, Intermediate and Advanced and these correspond to the three levels of courses available. The introduction to the Exams explains that the Advanced level is for those who "feel ready for the Academy of Esperanto". I may never be ready for this one. The Intermediate level is for those who "feel that they speak Esperanto fluently". I definitely cannot speak Esperanto fluently and may never be able to do so, although I'd like to be able to do so. The Basic level is for those who "have finished the 'Ana Pana' and 'Ana renkontas' courses". I am stalled at that point.

There appears to be a gap that many of us are falling through. We are neither "fish" nor "fowl", we are caught at some intermediate point where we are having trouble advancing. There are three of us who identify as being in this predicament on this one thread right now. There are probably dozens more that are in the same situation. Is there a solution to this?

If it is a matter of manpower, I'd be willing to help if there's anything that I could do to help the website. If it is a matter of finances, I'd be willing to contribute -- something I have never done before. I would like to improve my ability to speak Esperanto and I am attempting to "put my money where my mouth is," as the saying goes.

I only see two solutions although there may be others: one is to develop another level of courses for self-study, one that falls between the intermediate and the advanced courses now available. That would take time and money and I imagine Lernu is manned primarily by volunteers. The second would also be difficult: have some of the advanced and experienced Esperantists volunteer to tutor some of us who are serious about advancing -- at least far enough to get us out of our current rut. Then maybe we could tutor in our turn. I know, time is a valuable commodity and few of us have enough of it. That was just an idea.

I understand that Lernu is in the process of changing its website and that the changes are expected around the beginning of 2013. Now might be a good time to think about it if the Lernu team has any ideas.

Math is actually a great analogy for my problem. It's something akin to: I know the functions and standard approaches, so when I'm faced with a sentence I can solve it. However, when it comes time to form my own equations/sentences, I don't know the right way to fit things together. An integral is actually a particular apt choice -- I can differentiate all day, but when I try to integrate I find I'm left with this stupid constant term and no sufficient system of equations to solve for it.

palamon:I do not know if this helps but I am at about the same point myself. I have found it works best to think of the sentences like an equation for say an integral function. Assign certain parts of speech a value then work back to a complete sentence(the full equation). As i said this might not work well it depends on how your brain works. Mine handles equations well but is terrible at grammar helped by a certain lack of education in English grammar in US high school.

Although I signed up with Lernu probably the same week I decided to learn Esperanto, I have to admit that I did not use Lernu's courses to actually learn Esperanto. For that I bought some textbooks. You may want to do so as well.

"Teach Yourself Esperanto" is the first book I bought, and I would say that I learned the bulk of my grammar and early vocabulary from that book. Later on I bought "Step By Step In Esperanto", which is a fantastic resource, but it's so dense I'm not sure what kind of an introductory text it would make. Later on, one of my friends gave me "The Esperanto Teacher", which is actually very short compared to the other two, but it doesn't skimp on the material and still makes a good intro textbook.

"Teach Yourself Esperanto" is out of print, and I've seen some utterly stupid prices for it on the internet. $150 or some such. Look around. There are copies available here and there for reasonable prices (I paid $15 for mine). "Step By Step" is also not free, but still in print and easily gotten from the Esperanto-USA bookstore.

However, there are other good textbooks available for free on the web. Go hunt up Ivy Kellerman's book. It's a very old book, from the early 20th century, but the grammar hasn't changed, and the vocabulary has only gotten bigger - it's still a perfectly good textbook. You're more likely to learn about horses and carriages then computers and the internet, but that's actually irrelevant for the most part. I think "The Esperanto Teacher" is also available for free in a .pdf somewhere.

Lernu is a great resource, but don't limit yourself to it.

I experienced a similar problem when I learned English as my native language is Spanish.
For my work for many years had only need to communicate in writing, and occasionally had to talk on the phone and there arose the problem. The solution came when my company sent me for work in South Carolina and then to Paignton in England for several months, and there must had to talk, think and write only in English at the hotel, restaurants, offices and with partners and friends.
In summary only speaking in another language makes us change the switch to no longer think in our mother tongue and speak correctly and fluently.

It's true that the new lernu! courses under development should be more comprehensive than the current ones, and it's true that you shouldn't confine yourself to lernu!, but there's something else here as well.

Endless courses don't actually teach you a language. It has happened quite a few times that someone completes the highest level course that lernu offers ("Kio okazas" ) and asks "Which course should I do next?"

...in most cases, this question comes from people who are already writing with relatively few mistakes.

Endless courses don't bring you to fluency from an intermediate level. Using the language is hte only thing that will bring you to fluency. If you don't feel comfortable with your basics, then definitely try Kellerman's book, or another Esperanto text. But a course doesn't make you fluent, only using the language will do it.

Yes, it will be *painfully* slow at first. But you keep at it, and little by little, it gets a bit less painful and a bit less slow. You have to use the language to improve, you can't expect a course to teach you every word and expression you need.

Finding a penpal is useful. No, you won't always be writing correctly, and they won't either, but if you agree to correct each other, it helps. And if you can't agree on whether something is correct - ask in the forum.

Try translating a favorite song, poem, quote, whatever. Post it to the forum and ask for corrections.

Do you know why I think the Esperanto world is full of people who don't speak very well? lernu is a site for learners, so they have an excuse for their mistakes. But outside of lernu, I think that people reach a level where they can communicate, and they stop studying, they say "this is fine" and they stop reaching for perfection. They fail to notice that they say a certain thing differently than experienced Esperantists, and they fail to ask the question. You get ahead by asking questions and looking things up in grammar guides if you're not sure. The best students I've had are the ones who have asked a lot of questions. "When do I use ...", "How do I say...", etc.

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Regarding errors in the forums - yes, there are many errors. The new lernu will include some indicator of language level by someone's name, so you'll know whether this person is a beginner (high likelihood of errors) or an expert (low likelihood). But FYI, it isn't always wrong to put -ig- on a transitive verb. Manĝigi, for example, means to cause someone else to eat. And lernu forums are full of beginners, so as regards use of participles, lernu users can't necessarily be understood to be representative of Esperanto usage. Over-use of participles is a classic beginner error. (However, SOME participle use is fine - just because someone uses a complex verb, doesn't mean they're wrong; these words have their place)

If you already did Ana Pana and Ana Renkontas and you did ok in those courses, I recommend doing Kio Okazas, which is good writing practice. If someone does well in Kio Okazas, they don't need another course. And if someone doesn't do well in Kio Okazas, then they need to practice with some more exercises (maybe with "La puzlo Esperanto")

Incidentally, the Free Esperanto Book has a much-extended version of Ana Pana (20-some lessons instead of 6), if you liked that course.