The fact that English isn't an ideal interlang because of pronunciation difficulties etc. is lost on many, and in the best interest of the English speaking hegemony (which I'm part of) to ignore. Nevertheless, I don't think it's going to change anytime soon. Most people don't even know Esperanto is an option.

I find it interesting that China is promoting Esperanto more vigorously than probably any other nation, and I think it makes sense for them to do so. Realistically any Chinese dialect is not an option as an interlang (too hard to learn and no non-native speaker will ever have an adequate grasp of the written language) and it's in their interest for it not to be Americ... I mean English. So could China be good for Esperanto?

Any credibility to my hypothesis?

Personally, I would say that your hypothesis is plausible. My own experience in trying to help adults learners (although I am not a formal teacher in the field) is that English genuinely is a difficult language for adults, especially those whose native tongues are not Indo-European (and, more specifically, not Germanic or Slavic, considering English's rather difficult phonotactics).

If I were dictator of the world and my only choices for an interlanguage were English and Esperanto, then I would unhesitatingly order Esperanto, even as an educated native speaker of English. However, a pertinent point is, Why do people learn any second language? Apart from a few hobby types, in most cases it is because knowing (to whatever extent) the second language offers them some benefit which they want.

Today, knowing English offers (some) people significant benefit. That is why they struggle to have at least some minimal competence in English, no matter how difficult it is. (Of course, in some nations, English is taught to children, who learn multiple languages much more easily.) They get some value from their efforts.

At present, learning a Chinese language (and especially the writing system), Mandarin, say, does not offer the same value, so fewer people try to learn it. In the future that might change. What value does learning Esperanto (as highly as I genuinely do esteem it) offer individuals today compared to learning English? Sadly, perhaps, I would say much less. And my assessment, based on familiarity with other constructed international auxiliary languages, is that other conIALs offer even less benefit (again, as highly as I esteem the conIAL ideal).

Definitely, China's growth - economically, militarily and academically - is profitable to second language acquisition. It is so sad, that China's present government is so restrictive and allergic to change and criticism. The real potency of Chinese will develop once their government is self-assured and tolerates the full openness of its people. Then - due to the size of the speakership and the mere multiplication of thinking minds stiving to express themselves - there will be an explosion of interest in the Chinese language. Truly, what holds me back from working on improving my passive reading capacities in Mandarin is the restrictive, anemic attitude of the Chinese government. To think that I would be in China and not be allowed to view Facebook (which I hardly do here), as innocuous as Facebook is for most politics, would drive me insane - not because I want to view Facebook, but merely the stupid restriction, the attempt to tell me what to read and what to think. I chose Facebook as an example, not for its "face" value (no pun intended).
Russia seems to be where the US was in the 30's - also unsure of itself with a government scared of its own people - just like China.
And here in the US, our government trusts us (and our allied countries) so little - that they want to spy on us, even when we are talking innocently about sweet nothings.
Yes, it really is the 1930's - little has changed except for the allegiances and power blocks. Sad, sad, sad - BTW I would probably be more open if I were writing this in Esperanto, since the NSA probably doesn't have an Esperanto-speaking spy team (hehe) - maybe we could get them to develop one. Then again - until we have our own Green Army of Ĝisostuloj ready to storm the British Council and Amerikahaus, we are not much of a threat.

bartlett22183:Today, knowing English offers (some) people significant benefit. That is why they struggle to have at least some minimal competence in English, no matter how difficult it is.

At present, learning a Chinese language (and especially the writing system), Mandarin, say, does not offer the same value, so fewer people try to learn it. In the future that might change. What value does learning Esperanto (as highly as I genuinely do esteem it) offer individuals today compared to learning English? Sadly, perhaps, I would say much less.

The point is that it's not how much benefit the language brings, but the ratio of benefit to time spent studying it. I've been learning Esperanto for just a few weeks, yet I can read all the Esperanto written in these forums. Try that with English!

The huge advantage of Esperanto is that it's easy to learn, and the benefits of a couple of months' study are immense compared with the benefits of a couple of months' study of English.

In all of the discussions on the relative success of Esperanto and English (on the international field) that I have come across, there seems to have been little consideration of the fact that, largely, non-native speakers of English are not unduly bothered by their murdering of the phonology of English and their crippling of the grammar of the language and their misuse of the lexis.

In other words, from a practical point of view English is actually not that difficult, though of course learning to speak it well is. And since the main virtue of Esperanto is its ease of acquisition, this undermines the case for Esperanto relative to English.

If national languages could be learnt by adults to native speaker level in say 6 months, the case for Esperanto would be reduced to it being culturally neutral (not entirely true) and this might not weigh heavily at all.

So, because foreigners can fairly readily learn English to level at which it serves some practical purpose (however unsatisfactory their command of the language is in the eyes of native speakers of English) then the principal argument for Esperanto (its ease of acquisition ) is ignored - especially as the number of speakers of Esperanto confers little advantage in international communication compare to the ubiquity of the use of English.

The current situation can only change in favour of Esperanto, if the number of speakers can be very substantially increased - say to 100 million in Europe instead of half a million.

If you accept my premise that broken English is not considered to be that difficult and people are content with this level of command in international communication, then the implication is clear. There is no point in arguing for Esperanto on the grounds of its simplicity.

A different case must be made for Esperanto. Or, as I have already said, the problem must be found for which Esperanto is the solution.

sudanglo:In all of the discussions on the relative success of Esperanto and English (on the international field) that I have come across, there seems to have been little consideration of the fact that, largely, non-native speakers of English are not unduly bothered by their murdering of the phonology of English and their crippling of the grammar of the language and their misuse of the lexis....

In other words, from a practical point of view English is actually not that difficult, though of course learning to speak it well is.

If you accept my premise that broken English is not considered to be that difficult and people are content with this level of command in international communication, then the implication is clear. There is no point in arguing for Esperanto on the grounds of its simplicity.

Perhaps "broken English" will become the new "crowd sourced Esperanto equivalent", and native speakers of English will find themselves an irrelevant minority in their own language.

Bemused:

sudanglo:In all of the discussions on the relative success of Esperanto and English (on the international field) that I have come across, there seems to have been little consideration of the fact that, largely, non-native speakers of English are not unduly bothered by their murdering of the phonology of English and their crippling of the grammar of the language and their misuse of the lexis....

In other words, from a practical point of view English is actually not that difficult, though of course learning to speak it well is.

If you accept my premise that broken English is not considered to be that difficult and people are content with this level of command in international communication, then the implication is clear. There is no point in arguing for Esperanto on the grounds of its simplicity.

Perhaps "broken English" will become the new "crowd sourced Esperanto equivalent", and native speakers of English will find themselves an irrelevant minority in their own language.

This is already happening and to an increasing degree. Perhaps like the splintering of Latin? It might not converge, but diverge further. I look forward to seeing how English develops either way.

... I only hope we can agree on a spelling system that makes more sense than the current one.

I'd disagree that most foreigners are content with their English though. There's a definite thirst for it, worldwide, even if they want it to just communicate with other non-natives. And even this lower-level English with mangled pronunciation often represents hundreds or thousands of hours of stressful tuition. Often, it's simply the best level of English they can afford, not a deliberate choice to compromise on a level that's "good enough" for their purposes.

Esperanto's ease-of-acquisition is still very much a nice feature there. It's only that there aren't enough other speakers to make even this (far) easier challenge worth the attempt.

China, if they do invest in Esperanto, would be a big help.
Esperanto thrown at English school-kids as language-acquisition training wheels, that's gold.

Is there more that can be done on the internet? More original media?

oreso:

Bemused:Perhaps "broken English" will become the new "crowd sourced Esperanto equivalent", and native speakers of English will find themselves an irrelevant minority in their own language.

... I only hope we can agree on a spelling system that makes more sense than the current one.

The English Spelling Society have been working on just that... for at least 100 years

Maybe during the last 125 years the required features of an IAL have changed.
Maybe nowadays an intermediate language, which is easily and unambiguously parseable for computer systems, and can be easily machine-translated to national languages, is of more interest than a human IAL in the classic sense.
Just an idea, though.

oreso:This is already happening and to an increasing degree. Perhaps like the splintering of Latin? It might not converge, but diverge further. I look forward to seeing how English develops either way.

... I only hope we can agree on a spelling system that makes more sense than the current one.

I'd disagree that most foreigners are content with their English though. There's a definite thirst for it, worldwide, even if they want it to just communicate with other non-natives. And even this lower-level English with mangled pronunciation often represents hundreds or thousands of hours of stressful tuition. Often, it's simply the best level of English they can afford, not a deliberate choice to compromise on a level that's "good enough" for their purposes.

Esperanto's ease-of-acquisition is still very much a nice feature there. It's only that there aren't enough other speakers to make even this (far) easier challenge worth the attempt.

China, if they do invest in Esperanto, would be a big help.
Esperanto thrown at English school-kids as language-acquisition training wheels, that's gold.

Is there more that can be done on the internet? More original media?

I would say at least 50-60% of my college engineering professors were non-native speakers of English, and I can tell you firsthand that even the better speakers still caused a great deal of confusion at times. I would also say that these people are above your average level of intelligence, and some have been working in their fields for decades. Pronunciation is a big problem, but one that can be adapted to with some practice.

I also saw plenty of excellent peer-reviewed papers that had grievous grammatical issues and were downright difficult to read because of it. Technical writing depends on a precise command of the target language to accurately convey ideas. There were some instances in class where lack of mutual understanding led to serious issues with following instructions. My vote is also with the "all they could afford" explanation over the "good enough" one.

I do see the only mainstream use of Esperanto being a language acquisition tool. That is the last real hope of mainstream adoption we have short of English falling out of style.