I have noticed that in the Esperanto Forums I can understand English speakers the best. People from the UK, America, Australia, ect... I have a harder time understanding others. I have to put a lot more effort into figuring out what they are saying.

Is this because I am an English speaker and other English speakers use language similar to the way I use it? Or, is it because other speakers are not using Esperanto properly? What is your opinion?

Thanks

Alkanadi:… Or, is it because other speakers are not using Esperanto properly?

*rolleyes*
Yeah, that's the reason for sure …

Maybe you should provide an example.

Hard to tell without examples, but I second Fenris's opinion.

Take me for instance: I am not an English speaker, and my English is limited to what I have learned at high school.
Could you take for instance this post of mine (or any other you like), and point out, which are the items that make my Esperanto difficult for you to understand?

Maybe this way we can track down the source of the issue.

nornen:Hard to tell without examples, but I second Fenris's opinion.

Take me for instance: I am not an English speaker, and my English is limited to what I have learned at high school.
Could you take for instance this post of mine (or any other you like), and point out, which are the items that make my Esperanto difficult for you to understand?

Maybe this way we can track down the source of the issue.

I can understand it just fine (though I rather doubt you could honestly describe me as "mojosega" ).

As hard as we try to be consistent in our pronunciation and enunciation of the language, we can't help but carry a bit of the accent of our languages and regions into Esperanto. People with similar accents will be the easiest to understand. Personally, I would rank speakers in the following order as far as my ease in understanding them: 1. Americans and Canadians / 2. Other native English speakers. / 3. Germanic and Nordic language speakers / 4. Slavic language speakers / 5. Romance language speakers / 6. Asian language speakers.

I'm sure that speakers of Asian languages would rate them the other way around. I also have an easier time understanding a bilingual native English speaker when he or she is speaking French or Spanish than I have in understanding a native speaker of those languages. Again, I think the accent and pacing of the speech has a lot to do with it.

Maybe it's due to the word positions of other people's native language?
People whose language uses a strict "Subject + Verb + Complement" structure may understand better those using this same unalterable S+V+C structure (opposed to German with verbs at the end of conjunction for example)

Mustelvulpo:As hard as we try to be consistent in our pronunciation and enunciation of the language, we can't help but carry a bit of the accent of our languages and regions into Esperanto. People with similar accents will be the easiest to understand. Personally, I would rank speakers in the following order as far as my ease in understanding them: 1. Americans and Canadians / 2. Other native English speakers. / 3. Germanic and Nordic language speakers / 4. Slavic language speakers / 5. Romance language speakers / 6. Asian language speakers.

I'm sure that speakers of Asian languages would rate them the other way around. I also have an easier time understanding a bilingual native English speaker when he or she is speaking French or Spanish than I have in understanding a native speaker of those languages. Again, I think the accent and pacing of the speech has a lot to do with it.

This no doubt is true, but pronunciation, enunciation and scansion should be limited to spoken Esperanto, and OP is referring to posts he found in this forum.
Your vernacular language surely also influences your written expression of a foreign language, but I think not as heavily as your spoken expression. In Esperanto for instance I believe to see more problems with accusatives from speakers of languages which don't decline their nouns, overusage of compound tenses from speakers of languages which heavily rely on compound tenses, and well a basic bias towards "imitating" (I guess mostly unwillingly and mostly unconsciously) your own language's syntax. Also where we place the definite article seems to depend strongly on our national languages.

We should not forget that this is a learners' forum, and that therefore "bad" Esperanto is a phase each user passes through, no matter his linguistic background.

Mustelvulpo:I also have an easier time understanding a bilingual native English speaker when he or she is speaking French or Spanish than I have in understanding a native speaker of those languages.

This goes even farther. I remember a situation of two US-American missionaries [1] chatting among themselves in Spanish and obviously they understood one another perfectly. Only the bystanders, whose first language was indeed Spanish, couldn't understand next to nothing of what those two were talking about.

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[1] I am not sure of what church they were. Those young boys in suits and ties, with sunburns of third degree in the face. They always have a basketball court in front of their churches and invite boys to come and play basket ball. I think they are Mormons but I am not sure. More or less like Jehova's Witnesses, but a bit less aggressive and annoying and better dressed; and with basketball courts.

nornen:
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[1] I am not sure of what church they were. Those young boys in suits and ties, with sunburns of third degree in the face. They always have a basketball court in front of their churches and invite boys to come and play basket ball. I think they are Mormons but I am not sure. More or less like Jehova's Witnesses, but a bit less aggressive and annoying and better dressed; and with basketball courts.

ROFL
Please post on this forum when you publish your book on comparative religion.
I will be rushing to the bookstore to buy a copy

Personally, I would rank speakers in the following order as far as my ease in understanding them: 1. Americans and Canadians / 2. Other native English speakers. / 3. Germanic and Nordic language speakers / 4. Slavic language speakers / 5. Romance language speakers / 6. Asian language speakers.

Exactly. I would rate them almost in the same order.

I wasn't referring to speaking. I was just referring to written text. I didn't want to give examples because I don't want to hurt people's feelings, but maybe I will be more specific.

I find it really hard to understand Russians in the forums. Is it because I am an English speaker? Do they find us hard to understand?

I didn't want to give examples because I don't want to hurt people's feelings, but maybe I will be more specific.

With examples it would be much easier to judge whether the difficulty arises from a beginner writing in bad Esperanto, influenced by the way his mother tongue works, or whether the texts are in good Esperanto but using structures not found in English and which are not yet familiar to you.

This is a site for learning Esperanto and a lot of the posts will be written by komencantoj.