spreecamper:Reading last posts personal question came up why I should relate only with one group or community or what ever happening of aliens i.e. community of Esperanto, Interlingua, Ido, LdP, etc.? I didn't find reasonable answer to that. I also dislike that 'smarty Yankee versus Canadian Redneck' -amusement. Especially with that I can't see any relation to Esperanto matters which Lernu.net is intended to serve. But must be something deeper. Some Canadian friends of mine put a lot energy into to explain that North-americans could be different completely in mentality and that Canadians are now way U.S.-americans. Anyway. Let pull out 'the oil' from the fire.
Friendly/ Amike,

To the contrary - the yank is more of the red neck. I would do the yank part in Ido and the Canadian part in Esperanto. Which of course doesn't mean that Ido is red neck. The Kanuks (I mean that in a friendly way - some of my best relatives are Kanuks) speak a more standard English. Ours sort of ido'd away.

apok2:What more does Interlingua offer for the time and effort that I have expended?

One could ask the same thing about Esperanto, or most national languages if you're already an English speaker. Having spent about half my adult life working professionally in languages, I will nevertheless be the first to say that the "return on investment" for learning foreign languages is EXTREMELY low for native English speakers.

apok2:Frankly, Interlingua looks interesting. But undertaking a task such as learning it is going to demand a lot of time and effort.

Actually, I think that learning Interlingua (especially a passive, i.e. reading knowledge) is MUCH easier than learning Esperanto, especially if you already know a Romance language.

As for books, I personally own several dozen printed books in Interlingua and the UMI book service has several dozen more available. The newer ones are also available through Lulu, which saves a lot on postage and shipping time.

Oh, and here's a picture of one of my more unusual books on Interlingua ...

Amike,

Paul

apok2:Interlingua also claims to have a 27000 word dictionary available.

I can personally assure you that such a dictionary exists -- it's sitting on my bookshelf

Here's a picture of it next to the PIV 2005 for comparison.

Amike,

Paul

pdenisowski:I will nevertheless be the first to say that the "return on investment" for learning foreign languages is EXTREMELY low for native English speakers.

This statement bothers me a little, and I'm trying to put my finger on why. I guess I might say that I've personally felt that return on investment has been very high for me with languages, particularly with Esperanto, but it's more in a social than a monetary sense. True, native English speakers probably won't make much or any money with their knowledge of languages. But being able to muddle your way through at least one foreign language makes all the difference when travelling abroad (and I might add, it increases your awareness of a wide range of topics - more aware of how language works in general, including your own, more aware of viewpoints and ways of thinking that may be foreign to what you usually encounter, etc.)

I consider language study to be an essential element of being a knowledgeable and well-rounded person, even if you don't speak a foreign language fluently (or even well).

I think that if you don't even try learning a foreign language, it makes you less understanding of the struggles that others face when studying English, and this is a negative thing. Some foreign language study also helps you talk to non-native speakers of your own language - you are more aware of what you need to do to make life easier for a non-native speaker (pronounce words clearly, avoid idioms, etc).

pdenisowski:... I will nevertheless be the first to say that the "return on investment" for learning foreign languages is EXTREMELY low for native English speakers...

That really depends a great deal on how you define "return".

<--- Native English speaker.* (I know. But it's true.)

Seriously, if I didn't feel I was getting good value from Esperanto - better value than I would get from doing something else during the same time period - I wouldn't have been working with it at least a little while every day for the last eight years. There are a multitude of benefits from learning foreign languages, even for native English speakers, only some of which erinja noted above. In the case of Esperanto, true, there may not be financial rewards, but in other regards the returns on the time investment can be very, very high.

-------------------------
* In case it isn't apparent, I'm trying to draw an arrow pointing at my picture over there on the left. I'm not a very good aim, though.

erinja:

pdenisowski:I will nevertheless be the first to say that the "return on investment" for learning foreign languages is EXTREMELY low for native English speakers.

This statement bothers me a little, and I'm trying to put my finger on why. I guess I might say that I've personally felt that return on investment has been very high for me with languages, particularly with Esperanto, but it's more in a social than a monetary sense. True, native English speakers probably won't make much or any money with their knowledge of languages. But being able to muddle your way through at least one foreign language makes all the difference when travelling abroad (and I might add, it increases your awareness of a wide range of topics - more aware of how language works in general, including your own, more aware of viewpoints and ways of thinking that may be foreign to what you usually encounter, etc.)

I consider language study to be an essential element of being a knowledgeable and well-rounded person, even if you don't speak a foreign language fluently (or even well).

I think that if you don't even try learning a foreign language, it makes you less understanding of the struggles that others face when studying English, and this is a negative thing. Some foreign language study also helps you talk to non-native speakers of your own language - you are more aware of what you need to do to make life easier for a non-native speaker (pronounce words clearly, avoid idioms, etc).

EXCELLENT post -- I agree with every word. Thanks for explaining it far better than I could

Amike,

Paul

pdenisowski:Here's a picture of it next to the PIV 2005 for comparison.

Thats picture of original IED which doesn't contain any supplementos, isn't? Combining CEID (Year 2000) and any other Lista supplementari (last ones seems to be 6th edition 2011) Interlingua word vocabulary should contain much more in sum. But it also should be mentioned. Its not possible to compare PIV2005 with IED and CEID including its supplements. PIV2005 contains much more description per word entry than CEID does. Word descriptions inside CEID are much more narrow than PIV2005 ones.

Interlingua-English Dictionary ("IED" ), a dictionary of the international language prepared by the research staff of the International Auxiliary Language Association under the direction of Alexander Gode, Ph.D. Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. New York 1971. 27 000 parolas. ISBN 0-8044-0188-8. 415 paginas. Precio 36.30 EUR. Dictionario principal ("le biblia" ) de interlingua.

spreecamper:

robbkvasnak:Expressions like "what are you talking about" are indeed colloquial but rather rude. That is one of the problems of using an ethnic language in international communication. It is hard for the non-native speaker to hit just the right chord when using colloquialisms. I understand that your first language is not English and I excuse you for the rude tone, though I must add that upon first reading it I was a little hurt.

Okay. I'm sorry about. But thats the blunt way of communication in Germany where I did grow up. It was not my intention to hurt you.

Now that I have looked at the grammar I know all I have to do is read it! Using the best pronounciation I can and I would speak it Fluently probably in less than a year! I would definately no doubt be easier for me than esperanto and esperanto is easy until you get to advanced grammar and trying to use it! It's honestly easier to read and understand it than it is to use it!

robbkvasnak:Expressions like "what are you talking about" are indeed colloquial but rather rude.

I never imagined that.

spreecamper:

pdenisowski:Here's a picture of it next to the PIV 2005 for comparison.

Thats picture of original IED which doesn't contain any supplementos, isn't? Combining CEID (Year 2000) and any other Lista supplementari (last ones seems to be 6th edition 2011) Interlingua word vocabulary should contain much more in sum. But it also should be mentioned. Its not possible to compare PIV2005 with IED and CEID including its supplements. PIV2005 contains much more description per word entry than CEID does. Word descriptions inside CEID are much more narrow than PIV2005 ones.

I'd have to check, but it's the copy I bought in the 1980s. The Lista supplementari gets bigger ever edition, but since it's a list only, I'm not sure it counts. . The Dutch and Swedish Interlingua dictionaries also have many, many entries not in the IED - I'm (very) slowly integrating them into my IEDICT project.

By the way, I probably should have said "size comparison" -- just wanted to show that my copy of the IED is a reasonably substantial (and professionally printed/bound) book.

Amike,
Paul