hebda999:"English is the current international language because it is the current international language." that's ridiculous. English is where money and dominance are. When they change their place, prepare for a new "international language". It is useless to point out how many many billions of dollars have been put by USA into teaching of English to give it today status. Nothing is because it is - it was made to be so and we (the foreigners) all have to suffer.

That's the sad true. We live in a linguistic dictatorship. Esperanto is not taught in schools because someone doesn't want it. English schools gain billions of money, if you sing in another language you have to accept to be isolated, we are "americanized" every day from decades. Language is a business. Everyone who isn't an English speaker nowadays is a person of second level. Without politics Esperanto won't never win, according to me.

At any rate once there's money to be made in doing so people will start learning Chinese.

I think that is already the case with China becoming the emerging capitalist market. That is, I know of some people in the technology sector studying it for their frequent trips.
The Chinese government also offer quite generous grants to people (in certain countries) who want to teach the language independently.
I've just started my technology studies and it's not on the curriculum though. We get to (optionally) study Russian, German, French and Spanish if we ant to.

efilzeo: Everyone who isn't an English speaker nowadays is a person of second level. Without politics Esperanto won't never win, according to me.

I don't feel any need to speak English in Poland and in fact I don't. I also do not watch Polish TV, because all they show are American stupid movies (low budget I suppose) which I hate to watch (murders, villainy, green or blue people, masked man with ridiculously pointed up ears or the one who makes spider web on streets - is that all the culture they can sell to the world? pathetic...). So I don't feel myself as a second level human - why should I anyway?

hebda999:
I don't feel any need to speak English in Poland and in fact I don't. I also do not watch Polish TV, because all they show are American stupid movies (low budget I suppose) which I hate to watch (murders, villainy, green or blue people, masked man with ridiculously pointed up ears or the one who makes spider web on streets - is that all the culture they can sell to the world? pathetic...). So I don't feel myself as a second level human - why should I anyway?

That's a little bit strong, but you're entitled to the opinion. I'm no fan of the sort of popular culture America spreads around the world either, but that's not really a valid argument for not speaking English; there's so much other cultural access that English can provide.

The "problem" is only partly one of language imposition, it's also about a psychological race for inclusion and not being left behind. If it wasn't English it would probably be another national language doing the same thing. Every dominant culture has tried to either impose or encourage its language.

It all makes a case for a neutral language, but even the choice of that is disputed - even among constructed aux-lang advocates. Thus the reason why Esperanto isn't adopted as the de-facto auxillary language and taught in schools. Any such adoption needs two things: 1) a perceived sense of value (culturally, economic and personal), and 2) more aggressive promotion along the lines of not begging for recognition, but taking the position of obvious value and necessity.

Vestitor:That's a little bit strong, but you're entitled to the opinion. I'm no fan of the sort of popular culture America spreads around the world either, but that's not really a valid argument for not speaking English; there's so much other cultural access that English can provide.

I think that popular culture in general is not exactly so wonderful and refined, from any country. If we were to replace America with another country to spread their culture, can you honestly say that another country's popular movies and music are really so much better in quality and cultural content? Could you pick a country whose pop culture is so wonderful and refined that it should be spread all over? I can't think of one. I think that pop culture is a bit crass and all-show, no-content, almost by definition, from any country. I don't think it's a good thing that American stuff is so dominant, but if I had to choose another country's content to replace it with, I can't think of one.

Every country I can think of that has a large media industry produces a lot of trash and a few gems - just like the US media industry.

That's what I was saying in essence, that disliking American pop-culture is not a reason to dismiss English because the culture is spread via that language. Pop-culture is not entirely crass and vacuous, maybe a lot of popular media culture is. Most of the world's hobbies are really only popular culture. A lot of the media-heavy pop culture imported from the U.S. is quite vacuous, some not - Mad Men is a good example. And certainly the rest of the world very likely doesn't experience good U.S. pop-culture in the same way as ordinary Americans.

Vestitor:

hebda999:[blah...blah...]

That's a little bit strong, but you're entitled to the opinion.

That's a polite way of putting it.

Hebda (Geo) just loves to hang out in this English language forum so that he can spout the same old tripe again and again.

I just can't understand why he feels the need to bore learners of Esperanto with this kind of nonsense. For what purpose?!

There's a famous saying in science fiction fandom circles that was apparently first articulated by SF author and commentator Theodore Sturgeon. He once commented that "94% of science fiction is crap, but then 94% of everything is crap." The percentage quoted varies but is always over 90%. Just as an example, looking back at the music I enjoyed as a teenager in the 1960s, a lot of it was crap. That didn't stop me from liking it then, and it brings back some fond memories now, but I can still recognize that a lot of it was substandard.

Interestingly, Don Harlow once used Sturgeon's Law to address the claim that a huge percentage of translations into Esperanto are terrible. Basically, he said, yes, this is true, but it's the way things are in general.

RiotNrrd:Obama spoke while he was being indoctrinated in radical islamic atheism

Now what is that supposed to mean?

creedelambard:Schools in this country are starved for money and resources.

I used to teach the children of a wealthy man as a private tutor. He lived in a mansion, had a big SUV and a lot of the furniture was imported. When I asked him to by an Oxford dictionary and some other reference books for his children, he made a silly face and said he didn't have money. I used my own books and have yet to get them back. I digress!

Anyway what I want to say is, not having money is a lame excuse. I am not impressed.

Vestitor:Chinese is a huge language no doubt, but not many speak it as a second language, even some of its nearest neighbours.

That's a good argument. However, I wonder how many people in Germany and Spain speak French compared to English? Leave out the border areas and the ratio must not be very good. (Please correct me if I am wrong!)

hebda999:It is useless to point out how many many billions of dollars have been put by USA into teaching of English to give it today status. Nothing is because it is - it was made to be so and we (the foreigners) all have to suffer.

efilzeo:We live in a linguistic dictatorship. Esperanto is not taught in schools because someone doesn't want it.

I found a beautiful example that refutes this the other day. It goes something like this: a group of Italians learn English, go to Britain and spend the rest of their lives working for an English firm in Italy. In contrast, a group of Germans learn English, use it to read science journals, invent a drug and end up making billions.

For Italians it was an imposition, for Germans, an opportunity!

:94% of science fiction is crap, but then 94% of everything is crap

You sum it up very well! (But he said ninety per cent, not ninety-four.)

From an American student's perspective, I am going to say it is because we do things because make a big fuss out of it, not because it is smarter.

For example, I took a typing course, and learned to type in QWERTY. At the time, I did not question the layout, and just went with it. Later on, I learned about DVORAK. Started using it at home, and thought "Wow, this is awesome!". I went to the school, and tried typing on the computer, and found out I could not switch to computer the DVORAK. Even DVORAK is faster, and more efficient, they do not use it.

On another note, I think it should be taught to underachieving students. In my school, we are forced to either take three years of one foreign language, or two years of two foreign languages. But a lot of the kids either do not like their language, or do not learn it. In my Spanish 4 class, there was a kid who did not speak Spanish, at all. If we had Esperanto as a choice, people could actually learn a language, and not pretend to learn it.