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Eo Community in the US

de stevenastrong, 2013-oktobro-23

Mesaĝoj: 23

Lingvo: English

stevenastrong (Montri la profilon) 2013-oktobro-23 17:09:42

Saluton!

So, I am new to Esperanto; I've known it existed for a while, but just about a few months ago is when I decided to learn something about it and have been fascinated since. I live in NYC and figured in a city this huge that there would DEFINITELY be a few people I could get together with and learn more together. That being said, I have thus far found no one/nothing. No Meetup groups, the "official" NYC Esperanto Group has a 25 yr old website and shows hardly any signs of life (only about 3 posts in 2 yrs), and not much else in my searches. I have found my motivation to learn Eo start to wane in light of this, namely, that other than this forum and a convention once a year in a place that I may or may not be able to afford to go to, that there isn't much of a chance to use it actively. I hope I'm wrong, because I really like the language.

I know that Eo is a different animal that "national languages;" I have been studying/using German since I was a young teen and knew that the way I use/learn both would be different, I am just feeling discouraged about my rationale for learning the language and am hoping that others who know more/have more experience will be able to help me feel more a part of "la esperanta komunumo". Take care, all, and I look forward to hearing any tips that anyone may have.

Dankon!
Steve

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2013-oktobro-23 19:14:20

I'm not totally sure which website you're referring to. But this site mentions a date and a time of a meeting in November, it sounds like they meet roughly monthly. There are plenty of Esperanto speakers in New York.

Also, feel free to do a search of lernu users who live in New York; use activity level as a search term (to exclude people who used the site once in 2007), and to contact individuals to see if they want to meet up with you. There are plenty of resources if you know where to look and you're slightly creative.

kaŝperanto (Montri la profilon) 2013-oktobro-23 19:29:23

Interesting, I would also have assumed that NYC would have more Esperantists, especially since it is a very diverse place.

To make you feel better, I live in the midwest in IN (more the middle-east than midwest, but that is how we are branded). I oft wonder if I'm the only Esperantist in my state. The closest active Esperanto group that I know of is in Chicago. But, IMHO I learn Esperanto to speak to people who before I would have been unable to converse with. Knowing the grammar, correlatives, affixes, and more common words/phrases allows you to talk (write) to practically anyone when you have a vortaro. Don't get me wrong, I would love to be able to go to a meeting every now and then to meet some samideanojn, but (for me) it isn't a deal breaker.

The good thing is that virtual meetups are likely to become more and more commonplace (in general use, not just EO get-togethers).
I do still rock my green star lapel-pin on my jacket/coat when I go out, though. I would feel like I won the lottery if I were to find someone who would have any idea what it meant.

My advice is to stick with it, but don't base the decision to learn Esperanto on the same criteria you would for learning a natural language. For example, I got fairly far along in learning Spanish (up to the AP level in high school), but I never would see myself going to Spanish meetups or being in the Spanish club. The ideology/philosophy is what motivates me more than the opportunity to meet speakers in my area. I would look more into the NYC group though, since I'm sure there are many speakers in such an important city.

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2013-oktobro-23 19:34:36

NYC has plenty of Esperantists; you just have to find them, is all. And they seem to meet monthly so it should not be too hard to get started (but definitely also do a lernu user search to find some people who are closer to your own age -- those kinds of monthly meetings can tend geriatric, which is fine, but you also will be wanting to find some people in a similar place in life to your own)

BTW - when you do your user search, search not only for "New York" in the city box, but also "novjorko".

stevenastrong (Montri la profilon) 2013-oktobro-23 19:47:11

Indeed, it is finding them that is the problem. Other than the tip you just mentioned, any other places you can think to look to track down some esperantistoj that are the same age? You may not know, but it's always best to ask! ridulo.gif

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2013-oktobro-23 19:58:52

Word of mouth and networking. It's the best I can say. But definitely go to the meeting, a few younger people might show up among the retirees, and you can also ask the people there whether they know any Esperanto speakers in the city who are around your age.

And post in the lernu forums. Post in the Esperanto forums, ask if anyone lives in New York City or if they can refer you to any of their Esperanto friends in NYC, and if they'd be willing to meet up with you.

There are a few lernu users that I found in a brief search, so that's a good start as well. Lernu tends to skew young.

I do want to add a disclaimer that Esperanto is a really cross-generational community, and I have many dear Esperanto friends who are decades older than me, so don't discount the older generation. But a mix is key, it is great to have older friends, but it is also great to have friends at a similar stage in life to your own, particularly if you haven't hit a married/kids/grandkids stage of life.

For my part, I know one Esperanto guy in New York, he is probably 40-ish by now, but he isn't active anymore, and I doubt that I even have his contact info. So... actually I don't even know for sure whether he still lives there! But you should be creative in your searching. In your lernu search, try variations of the name (ny, novjorko, nov-jorko, new york), and also boroughs (brooklyn, bruklino, brokleno, broklino, etc. to capture some spelling variants that people might come up with)

Edit: and don't rule out New Jersey. Include New Jersey in your search, and also places in NJ that are near NY. And what the heck, why not Connecticut for that matter? Think also about suburbs, people might be willing to travel a little to meet you.

orthohawk (Montri la profilon) 2013-oktobro-23 21:32:22

erinja:NYC has plenty of Esperantists; you just have to find them, is all. And they seem to meet monthly so it should not be too hard to get started (but definitely also do a lernu user search to find some people who are closer to your own age -- those kinds of monthly meetings can tend geriatric, which is fine, but you also will be wanting to find some people in a similar place in life to your own)

BTW - when you do your user search, search not only for "New York" in the city box, but also "novjorko".
I find that having 2-word place names is a problem, also with places like NY, you, as you illustrate, may have to do a search twice, once in English and another in Esperanto. Is there a way to maybe use postal codes (in countries that have them) with a "within x miles" kind of statements that can be put into the search criteria? Just an idea.

januscogitatio (Montri la profilon) 2013-oktobro-23 23:56:21

Speaking of New Jersey, Saluton, mi iras al Rutgers, en Piscataway.

But in agreement with the others, many Eo speakers are not near each other, and with the invention of the internet, it makes communicating in Eo much easier (yet I am a bit surprised by the lack of a strong Eo online presence. I think this was addressed already in another forum or maybe on the Eo reddit. Perhaps someone could get on that, e.g. weekly google hangout, twitch tv, etc..) I know there's a skype list somewhere (but I think that's too much for beginners like me who would rather be in a community first to get a feel of the language)

coderiferous (Montri la profilon) 2013-oktobro-24 01:24:38

What about USEJ? I've tried looking into that, but their website at usej.org doesn't appear to have been updated since ~2007. I was actually about to make a post to ask, but then I saw this topic so I figured I'd post here. I'm pretty sure it's still referenced from Esperanto-USA and/or TEJO, but everything seems so utterly dead. Anyone know anything about them?

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2013-oktobro-24 03:26:23

USEJ is pretty much dead.

There is a wide world of Esperanto internet out there but there are too many Esperanto speakers to realistically do something like a skype list etc.

Also, this may be a bit so obvious that it isn't obvious, but you have better luck if you google for things IN Esperanto. So do your search for "esperantistoj novjorko" instead of "esperantists in new york", for example.

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