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Esperanto Grammar Editors Needed. - Some People Learn by Doing

de Talisman, 2014-februaro-14

Mesaĝoj: 22

Lingvo: English

lagtendisto (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-16 14:05:34

bartlett22183:For me, it remains just a written code.
With online radio Muzaiko.info everybody worldwide can train its hear understanding which later could motivate to speak oneself at onsite happenings. But I agree theres not much KER-A2 and higher proficiency inside 'very loudly propagated speech community' of Esperanto.

lagtendisto (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-16 14:21:46

sudanglo:Every so often on a particular night of the week or month people gather in a certain café or bistro where, on some of the tables, flags are set out to indicate that that table is dedicated to conversation in the corresponding language.
I have visited such foreign language 'Stammtisch' events (English; Esperanto) several times. I felt that these events had very cramped atmosphere, too. If some native speaker of regarding foreign language shows up then - huuh - what of excotics - everybody only concentrates what this 'VIP native speaker' speaks. That also puts lot of expectations on regarding native speaker which not every native speaker feels comfortable with.

I believe some foreign language should not be key topic of some foreign language 'Stammtisch' club event. Some non-language hobby should be key topic accompanied with regarding foreign language. Same like Toastmaster's events are done.

bartlett22183 (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-16 23:04:19

One thing that comes to mind is whether the loka esperanto-klubo model is still workable. Erinja and I have both remarked on our experiences. However, I fully admit that the situation here in the USA may not be typical of experiences worldwide. Nevertheless, if Esperanto is genuinely to be an international auxiliary language (with respect to E-o I confess to both finvenkista and Raŭmista tendencies, although I am not fluent), how are we to proceed? If there are not some kind of local experiences one can have to gain skill, how will the learners ever proceed beyond the eterna komencanto stage of just a more or less interesting written code?

Rikat (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-16 23:23:11

bartlett22183:If there are not some kind of local experiences one can have to gain skill, how will the learners ever proceed beyond the eterna komencanto stage of just a more or less interesting written code?
The internet might provide some solutions, but it is hard to get people to agree on a forum (some hate Skype, others are allergic to Google Hangouts, etc)… If internet oriented people were able to reach agreements about such things, there could be audio-only or audio+video meetings and conventions.

Also one can arrange conference calls on the telephone; the company I work for does this every week.

So it's not like we have to get close enough to each other to smell one another's breath to have conversations. That need ended when telephone and radio were invented.

bartlett22183 (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-16 23:43:04

Yes, you have some legitimate points here. However, we have to consider that not all the features of the internet are universal. For example, I as an older person have literally NOT ONCE EVER looked at Facebook or Twitter (I am serious) and have no reason to do so. My computer does not have a microphone, so I presume Skype would be useless to me.

Many people today tend to think entirely in terms of the internet, but there are those of of older folks who fall behind. malgajo.gif Yes, it is so. Are we to be abandoned? What about the millions (possibly billions) of individuals who have no connection to the internet? Is Esperanto (or *any* auxiliary language) to be hidden away from them? Is E-o truly an international language, or is it only an internet-only language for the privileged?

Bemused (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-17 05:26:12

spreecamper:
bartlett22183:For me, it remains just a written code.
With online radio Muzaiko.info everybody worldwide can train its hear understanding which later could motivate to speak oneself at onsite happenings. But I agree theres not much KER-A2 and higher proficiency inside 'very loudly propagated speech community' of Esperanto.
There are also other radio sources for accessing spoken Esperanto.

For example, 3ZZZ, a community radio station in Melbourne, Australia, has one hour of Esperanto per week.
The frequency is 92.3.
I believe that the programs are also available as podcasts, so anyone with access to a public library can download and listen to the programs.

Of course this does not provide practice speaking, but at least it does provide some idea of how the language is pronounced, and practice interpreting the spoken lamguage.

sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-17 14:05:56

Bartlett, Skype is downloadable for free and your local PC store (or Amazon) can probably sell you a mike or headset for under $20.

However, there is nothing quite like attending an international congress for boosting your fluency in spoken Esperanto. This is, of course, much easier for Europeans. The distances are much smaller and the EU now has (I believe) 23 official languages.

lagtendisto (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-17 19:13:00

bartlett22183:If there are not some kind of local experiences one can have to gain skill, how will the learners ever proceed beyond the eterna komencanto stage of just a more or less interesting written code?
Some Esperanto speech recognition software would be great.

Rikat:The internet might provide some solutions, but it is hard to get people to agree on a forum (some hate Skype, others are allergic to Google Hangouts, etc)… If internet oriented people were able to reach agreements about such things, there could be audio-only or audio+video meetings and conventions.
I would like add jitsi.org to that list. Jitsi has better privacy (direct peer-to-peer encryption) settings by default than Skype. Data send per Skype client software will be decrypted at correspondending Microsoft server which then encryptes data again to send it to other communication partners. Using Skype is like accepting that Microsoft can listen your calls like some kind of Man-in-the-middle attacker. But to be fair every telephone provider can do same, too.

bartlett22183:If internet oriented people were able to reach agreements about such things, there could be audio-only or audio+video meetings and conventions.
It would need some kind of public time table where these meetings are announced. Personaly I would prefer to meet somebody first before I would attend such kind of audio+video meetings with regarding person.

bartlett22183:Is E-o truly an international language, or is it only an internet-only language for the privileged?
I think that Esperanto is not an Internet-only language.

bartlett22183 (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-17 21:41:33

sudanglo:Bartlett, Skype is downloadable for free and your local PC store (or Amazon) can probably sell you a mike or headset for under $20.
This may well be, but there are those of us older people who can manage some text form usage of the internet but who would be reluctant to engage some stranger over a microphone half a world away.

sudanglo:However, there is nothing quite like attending an international congress for boosting your fluency in spoken Esperanto. This is, of course, much easier for Europeans. The distances are much smaller and the EU now has (I believe) 23 official languages.
To be sure, but especially for those of us older individuals on limited incomes who do not have the financial resources to travel and take accommodations, congresses may not be practical. (For example, I have a sister in another part of the USA whom I have not seen in years, so how am I supposed to go to some loka kongreso?) And as I mentioned before, my own experience with the loka esperanto-klubo scene was not the best. So again, for people like me with limited resources and limited opportunities, E-o largely remains a written abstract code. (Not that that in and of itself is bad, of course, if nothing else.)

sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-18 11:20:09

The problem of developing spoken fluency for isolated learners of the language who for one reason or another can't attend international conferences is certainly one that needs to be addressed.

Perhaps Lernu will one day be able to host an audio group chat where one can participate actively through your mike, or just listen in on people's conversation.

There used to be a site called Chatonic where one could do this, but I think it may have died. Does anybody know?

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