I've been on the site for about a week now trying to learn Esperanto - just wondering how long it has taken everyone else on here to become semi-fluent? Or at the very least, able to read, understand, and write paragraphs and full, complete sentences?

Also, any tips or advice on the quickest method for learning that worked for you?

Dankon!!

It depends a lot on your natural aptitude for languages, whether you've studied a language before, and how much time you put into it.

Someone who studies for a couple of hours every day and has a natural aptitude can reach a conversational level in a surprisingly short time (within a matter of weeks - I have seen it happen). Someone who studies for an hour a week and doesn't have any particular linguistic skill may take many months to reach a conversational level. It's hard to judge. When I used to be a tutor for Ana Pana, I usually quickly noticed the general level of the student, whether it seemed to be hard or easy for them.

What's your language learning history? Do you speak other languages, and how did you learn them?

I put in about fifteen minutes of study a day, and began my any-topic Esperanto-language blog six months after I started.

In contrast, I sat for an hour a day, five days a week, in a French class in high school, and we didn't get to the past tense until the second year. After a full three years, during which I got straight A's (and then followed by 30 years of non-practice) I can neither read, write, nor speak French to any degree whatsoever.

Esperanto is MUCH easier than the natural languages. But don't expect miracles. There's time and effort involved. There's just less of it, relatively speaking.

As for tips: write as much as you can (about anything, it doesn't matter), and don't be afraid to ask for correction. And then, pay attention to the advice given, and make sure you understand it. And then follow it.

But above all: write.

Write, write, write.

It is the only way to learn.

In the early days, start small. A sentence here, a paragraph there. Use the dictionary. A LOT. Make all the pieces fit together; all the words with proper endings; simple tenses; and so on. At first, even short stuff can take longer than you might think is reasonable - an hour for an easy three sentence paragraph, for example - but that's a short phase to go through. Keep at it, and you will rapidly improve.

AND, the best part of learning this way is that you will automatically develop the vocabulary that is most suited to, and most useful to, you. There can be no better customized lesson plan.

RiotNrrd:As for tips: write as much as you can (about anything, it doesn't matter), and don't be afraid to ask for correction. And then, pay attention to the advice given, and make sure you understand it. And then follow it.

But above all: write.

Write, write, write.

It is the only way to learn.

I agree!

I began writing journal (personal diary) entries in fairly fluent Esperanto after four months of participating in forum threads. I do consider myself good at languages.

There's an important difference between learning a national language and learning Esperanto.

In the case of learning national languages the acquisition of fluency and the ability to judge whether you have uttered a correct sentence tend go hand in hand.

With Esperanto you may be able to generate (slowly) a correct sentence long before you acquire fluency.

This is not only obvious from theoretical considerations, but is confirmed by experience.

At my first Esperanto Congress, I directly experienced the phenomenon of being able to self-correct well in advance of being able to rattle off my replies.

The fluency comes later with practice and may be preceded by some months by a grasp of how the language works. Early fluency is more a matter of mental agility or quick-wittedness. Alas, we are not all equally gifted in that department.

As for me, I've been learning Esperanto for five months now and I slowly get to a 'semi-fluent reading'. According to my learning software I know about 600 Esperanto word roots. With an averrage derivation rate of 10 words per root that should make around 6'000 words in total.
I learn about 10 new words per day and I spend one hour for learning and repeating, half an hour in the morning after getting up and half an hour in the evening before I go to sleep.

I learned in university that you should not learn/study any longer than a period of 90 minutes. Afterward you should make a mental break of at least 15 minutes.
A mental break means something that focuses more on a physical aspect like walking, cleaning, tiding, napping and so on.
One shouldn't watch TV or surf in the internet or any other activity that needs mental energy, those rather have contra-productive effects, that means they overwrite the stuff you have just learned.
You should read about learning strategies, there are plenty ways to learn new stuff and every person has its own suitable way to learn new stuff.

A language is not a thing you can learn over night, it needs time to settle in, to get used to the new sounds and structures and finally to get into it.
Also think about active and passive vocabulary, you can reach a big passive vocabulary within a few months but in order to reach a good active vocabulary you need much more time, I think there is a time factor of 7 between passive and active vocabulary. That means you can understand pretty quickly but in order to phrases your own ideas you need more time than just for understanding.

As for me, I needed about 8 years in order to reach a fluent speaking level in English.
Keep in mind, you will never have ended learning a language, even in your native language you learn new stuff every day.

Other foreign languages are a good help in order to learn Esperanto. I just had to study about 1/3 of those Esperanto words I know so far, all the others I could derivate from German, English, Spanish and some basic Latin.

I would recommend to read (also aloud) and write a lot in Esperanto, both help to improve your Esperanto skills.

I took French for two years in high school and have bought some French/German programs for my computer that I've studied, but it's all basic stuff. I've never been fluent in anything other than my native language. But this is all very good advice - thank you so much! I will definitely start writing more in Esperanto; I've been studying for at least an hour a day (sometimes more) and I'm picking up a lot of it pretty quickly (I think lol.) Mainly the grammar is confusing me a little but I just started learning grammar yesterday. Thanks guys!

erinja:It depends a lot on your natural aptitude for languages, whether you've studied a language before, and how much time you put into it.

Someone who studies for a couple of hours every day can has a natural aptitude can reach a conversational level in a surprisingly short time (within a matter of weeks - I have seen it happen). Someone who studies for an hour a week and doesn't have any particular linguistic skill may take many months to reach a conversational level. It's hard to judge. When I used to be a tutor for Ana Pana, I usually quickly noticed the general level of the student, whether it seemed to be hard or easy for them.

What's your language learning history? Do you speak other languages, and how did you learn them?

i2Bwitchy:I took French for two years in high school and have bought some French/German programs for my computer that I've studied, but it's all basic stuff. I've never been fluent in anything other than my native language. But this is all very good advice - thank you so much! I will definitely start writing more in Esperanto; I've been studying for at least an hour a day (sometimes more) and I'm picking up a lot of it pretty quickly (I think lol.) Mainly the grammar is confusing me a little but I just started learning grammar yesterday. Thanks guys!

English, German and French are good sources for learning Esperanto, because English and German are Germanic languages based mainly on Germanic word roots and French is a Romance language based mainly on Latin word roots.
You will probably find several Esperanto words that might look similar to words you already know, for example 'krajono' (eng. pencil) sounds similar to the French 'crayon' or 'lerni' (to learn) sounds similar to English 'learn' and German 'lernen' and so on. Even if you can't remember French or German words anymore, there's still a passive vocabulary in your mind and you will remember these words if you come across them in Esperanto.

You should try to organize to learn every day a little bit. It is easier to keep things in mind if do a little learning every day than learning many hours one day and then just continue a week later.

If you have any further question about Esperanto, you are welcome to ask them here in the forum, everybody on here would like to help you.

I think I speak for everbody if I say: 'Welcome on here!'

With regards to Esperanto helping you learn other languages, Benny Lewis has an interesting blog post. Just 2 weeks learning Esperanto can get you months ahead in your target language. I am not, however, very sympathetic to the idea of promoting Esperanto as a means to something else. Esperanto is the most important language you can learn. For its own sake. Period.