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Is this good advice?

貼文者: Kokirian, 2013年3月27日

訊息: 10

語言: English

Kokirian (顯示個人資料) 2013年3月27日下午8:53:05

If a person wants to learn English, and they speak Japanese or Mandarin or Korean or some other eastern language that is extremely different than English, is it good advice to tell them to learn Esperanto first? Esperanto has many elements of western language (English, the Romance languages, etc.) and is easier to learn than English. Perhaps it would be easier for them to learn the rules of Esperanto before moving on to English?

Ganove (顯示個人資料) 2013年3月27日下午9:59:10

If you learn a language it always helps you to understand further languages.
If you learn Esperanto it helps you a lot to understand grammatical and semantical functions of a language.
Of course, with this knowledge, it is easier to learn further languages than without.

Also, since Esperanto was made to be simple and easy, it should not be that difficult to learn Esperanto compared with any other language.
Having Esperanto as a "bridge" between native language and foreign language, one should progress a lot faster than without knowing Esperanto.

As for me, I would advice and recommend non-Indo-European native speakers to learn Esperanto if they want to learn an Indo-European language.
And that's already happening. I read that some Asians learn Esperanto in order to learn an Indo-European language.

J_Marc (顯示個人資料) 2013年3月29日上午3:53:54

Kokirian:If a person wants to learn English, and they speak Japanese or Mandarin or Korean or some other eastern language that is extremely different than English, is it good advice to tell them to learn Esperanto first? Esperanto has many elements of western language (English, the Romance languages, etc.) and is easier to learn than English. Perhaps it would be easier for them to learn the rules of Esperanto before moving on to English?
Your reasoning is sound, but you are going to have a hard time talking someone into it. I can report on my exeriences in Japan and Korea, though not Chinese-speaking countries. In Japan, I have been a member of the Esperanto movement, and a guest speaker at English language study club in a big city. (Ha! I simply translated the prelego I gave at the previous Zamenhof Day, and gave the same lecture in English!) The former is a lot of old people and a smattering of young idealists, and is about 70:30 male to female; the latter was a broad cross-section of people from different professions, was a lot younger, and about 50:50 male to female. In short, to the average person it 'seems' more normal and everyday. There is also a direct financial incentive to learn English; better TOEIC results can lead to a better job, better salary. So while it might be advantageous for one in such a country to put in some time studying Esperanto before English, you may have a tough time making folks believe you.

The other thing is that people begin studying English from junior high school in Japan and Korea. Earlier in some parts - I've taught it at primary schools in both countries. So, they get to know the basics of grammar and syntax at a young age. In other words they already have a decent grounding in English by the time they graduate high school.

At least invite them to a kongreso. If they are relatively young they will get the royal treatment, I can assure you! If they are relatively young and female, then expect (metaphorical) garlands and panegyrics!

se (顯示個人資料) 2013年3月29日上午5:17:08

Kokirian:If a person wants to learn English, and they speak Japanese or Mandarin or Korean or some other eastern language that is extremely different than English, is it good advice to tell them to learn Esperanto first? Esperanto has many elements of western language (English, the Romance languages, etc.) and is easier to learn than English. Perhaps it would be easier for them to learn the rules of Esperanto before moving on to English?
I would show them this site and tell them to think of the future generation.

It is sad that the Oomoto followers have discarded Esperanto as a major language of prayer in Japan

Miland (顯示個人資料) 2013年4月11日上午7:50:27

Kokirian:If a person wants to learn English, and they speak .. some .. language that is extremely different .. is it good advice to tell them to learn Esperanto first?
Learning Esperanto IMO would be a distraction. I would say that the most valuable thing would be immersion in an English speaking environment, apart from attending classes.

hebda999 (顯示個人資料) 2013年4月11日上午10:36:56

English is a total mess. Learning Esperanto first (as I did) will put things in the right place and help you to clean the mess in other languages.

Just think of this: how many non English native writers write books in English on their own (they studied the language for many years)? And how does this figure look like in Esperanto (they studied the language for a year or just two) ? -- as 1% to 100% !!!

English as the Global Language: Good for Business, Bad for Literature

pdenisowski (顯示個人資料) 2013年4月13日下午11:14:28

Kokirian:If a person wants to learn English, and they speak Japanese or Mandarin or Korean or some other eastern language that is extremely different than English, is it good advice to tell them to learn Esperanto first?
No. If you want to learn English, start by learning English.

Your question (somewhat tangentally) reminds me of friend of mine whose son wanted to become a physician. My friend said that he wanted his son to learn Latin and Greek because so many medical terms are derived from Latin and Greek. My response to him was that learning Latin/Greek roots (or morphemes) was a good idea for almost anyone, but that there was no value in learning all the paradigms, syntax, etc. that make up the bulk of any class in classical languages.

Knowing that "myocardial" has something to do with the muscles of the heart is useful to almost anyone. Knowing how to parse the verbs in "Possunt, quia posse videntur" is not a highly transferrable skill (and I say this with some small experience in the matter)

De (linguis) mortuis nihil nisi bonum ridulo.gif

Paul

yyaann (顯示個人資料) 2013年4月13日下午11:58:29

The benefits of learning Esperanto to facilitate subsequent acquisitions of other languages has been proven by nine different trials in the 20th century. In the long run, people who learnt Esperanto before learning a foreign national language not only bridged the gap with those who directly started to learn said national language, they eventually excelled them, consistently.

It could be argued that to advise against lerning Esperanto before English is to give less attention than is deserved to the available knowledge on the subject.

brw1 (顯示個人資料) 2013年4月14日上午1:20:35

Esperanto was not my first foreign language. I learn French first and did very well but, I grew up around it. I studied other languages as well and all though I did not do bad I was not happy with my progress in Spanish or Greek so, I tried esperanto and it is helping me to progress better with spanish and the big surprise how easy ASL is after esperanto.

hjhj (顯示個人資料) 2013年4月15日下午2:34:45

brw1: I tried esperanto and it is helping me to progress better with spanish and the big surprise how easy ASL is after esperanto.
I'm curious about your experience with ASL after Esperanto. I have been studying Esperanot on and off for the last couple years. I just recently took a ten-week ASL class. The similarities did not occur to me during the class, but now that I think about it, having been exposed to Esperanto probably helped me learn the grammar of ASL.

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