I'm writing a paper about Esperanto Chat Rooms and Forums and their correlation with identity in the USA for my Linguistics class and I wanted to ask 8 questions for you to answer. (People in the USA are especially encouraged to answer these questions, but I also want to hear from people in other countries)

1. How did you get involved in Esperanto?
2. How do you use Esperanto in your daily life?
3. What is Esperanto doing for you?
4. Do you feel like you're part of the Esperanto Community?
5. What does the Esperanto Community do for you?
6. What identities are formulated through your use of Esperanto?
7. Why do you continue to use Esperanto?
8. What does access to an Esperanto Chat Room or Forum mean to you?

1. How did you get involved in Esperanto? I was put in a boarding school in Lausanne (Switzerland) in a dorm room with two other students who did not speak English. One of them suggested that we all learn Esperanto until I spoke enough French (the school language there). So we used Esperanto until I learned French (about 3-4 months later).
2. How do you use Esperanto in your daily life? We use it at home and I communicate on the web. I use it as a model for explaining foreign language studies to American students at the university, since most of them are total monolinguals – using Esperanto I can give them a solid model of what a foreign language is like without stepping on anyone’s feet culturally and without having to get into irregular verbs, etc.
3. What is Esperanto doing for you? It makes my mind work extra hard to formulate things in a non-national way.
4. Do you feel like you're part of the Esperanto Community? Yes, I do. I feel like it is an international community that shares a desire to be more than just your own nationality.
5. What does the Esperanto Community do for you? They stimulate me online and tomorrow an Esperanto family has invited me for lunch (they are people whom I probably won’t even have ever met if it weren’t for Esperanto). It helps me understand foreign languages that I study because I can translate verbatim into Esperanto and then understand word orders that are foreign to me.
6. What identities are formulated through your use of Esperanto? I am more than an American – I am an international citizen.
7. Why do you continue to use Esperanto? Because it stimulates me and I can meet new people who really want to talk to me. If I use a national language, people mostly communicate just what they need to but no real relationships grow out of it (I speak 9 other languages).
8. What does access to an Esperanto Chat Room or Forum mean to you? It has given me the chance to write Esperanto every day. We speak it at home (my husband is Brazilian) but we rarely write to each other. Writing helps me develop a more extensive vocabulary.

(People in the USA are especially encouraged to answer these questions, but I also want to hear from people in other countries) I live in Ontario, but I'm originally from North Carolina.

1. How did you get involved in Esperanto?
I heard about Esperanto peripherally in a documentary I was watching. It was mentioned that an "odd" character on the show was always studying Esperanto in the background and bringing it up mostly for comedic effect. I didn't know what Esperanto was, so I looked it up.

2. How do you use Esperanto in your daily life?
Esperanto is a hobby for me. I enjoy leaving comments on Google+, YouTube, blogs, and other places in Esperanto and letting people use Google's auto-translate feature to figure it out for themselves. I also use it to communicate with other Esperantists, but that's about it.

3. What is Esperanto doing for you?
They say you should exercise your brain as well as your body, so I use use the language for mental calisthenics. I do hope that Esperanto will achieve its goal of becoming a widely used and recognized auxiliary language, but for now it's a hobby.

4. Do you feel like you're part of the Esperanto Community?
Esperanto is what you make of it, so I think that to learn and speak Esperanto is itself to be a part of the community. Anyway, the "community" changes depending on the members of the group, and Esperantists tend to be a varied bunch, so it's different all the time.

5. What does the Esperanto Community do for you?
Like I said, Esperanto is a hobby for me, so it keeps me active, engaged, and entertained.

6. What identities are formulated through your use of Esperanto?
I've studied German, Spanish, Latin, and Russian in addition to Esperanto, so being a learned person who "sees far" has always been a part of my personal identity.

7. Why do you continue to use Esperanto?
I use it to keep my mind active. It's a hobby, so as far as that goes it's better for me than video games.

8. What does access to an Esperanto Chat Room or Forum mean to you?
I don't use the chat rooms. When I communicate with other Esperantists, it's either through video on YouTube or comments in a Google+ community. I rarely use real-time, live chat rooms for communicating in Esperanto.

Not so long ago there were two other threads asking similar questions.
You might find the responses in those threads of use in your enquiries.

Unfortunately, I just discovered I do not know how to access threads not on the front page.
*embarrassed face*

Perhaps someone else can help you with that.

(People in the USA are especially encouraged to answer these questions, but I also want to hear from people in other countries)

I'm an American who just moved to China.

1. How did you get involved in Esperanto?
A decade ago, I created my own language, but I never really learned to speak it very well. (My consonant clusters were quite difficult and strange, but I had a nice set of vowels.) It got me interested in other created languages, and I learned about Esperanto. However, I did not actually start learning it until this summer when my girlfriend and I tried to learn it together. (She gave up on it, and we broke up. Edit: The two events were unrelated.)

2. How do you use Esperanto in your daily life?
Sometimes I will read Wikipedia articles in Esperanto, but I don't do a lot with it quite yet. Occasionally, I'll look for others who speak or are willing to learn Esperanto so that I don't have to be so lonely with my language.

3. What is Esperanto doing for you?
I hope that I will soon become fluent enough that I can begin using it as my faux-native tongue. When I travel internationally, I don't like to use English (simply because it is too easy), because I'd much rather be practicing speaking one of the other languages that I study (Spanish, Chinese, French, and I've started Arabic).

4. Do you feel like you're part of the Esperanto Community?
Not quite yet, as I haven't actually met or gotten to know very many people.

5. What does the Esperanto Community do for you?
If nothing else, it has developed a vast array of means of studying the language. (Thanks, y'all!)

6. What identities are formulated through your use of Esperanto?
I feel like a linguist (Never mind that mainstream linguists have traditionally ignored us.)

7. Why do you continue to use Esperanto?
I'd like to go to the 100a UK next summer in Lille, France. It keeps me motivated.

8. What does access to an Esperanto Chat Room or Forum mean to you?
I know that if I have a language question or some trouble with Esperanto-related matters, there will always be someone willing to answer my inquiry. Also, I like to look at the Spanish or French chat rooms to keep those languages up as well (as rural China does not easily provide such practice opportunities), but that may not have been what you were asking about.

1. How did you get involved in Esperanto?

I searched the web for the easiest language to learn

2. How do you use Esperanto in your daily life?

Just on this website. Forums and private messages

3. What is Esperanto doing for you?

It is entertainment at this point in time

4. Do you feel like you're part of the Esperanto Community?

Not really

5. What does the Esperanto Community do for you?

They help me learn Esperanto.

6. What identities are formulated through your use of Esperanto?

Nothing. Maybe, I feel a little more connected to others around the world. So, maybe I am a bit more of a global citizen.

7. Why do you continue to use Esperanto?

It is interesting. I think that it will be useful in the future

8. What does access to an Esperanto Chat Room or Forum mean to you?

The ability to chat with people who speak the language.

English person living in Poland here!

1. How did you get involved in Esperanto?
I've been interested in conlangs for a long time (mostly Klingon and Quenya, but also Toki Pona), but I put Esperanto off because it was cheating by trying to be easy and useful ^_^

2. How do you use Esperanto in your daily life?
Mostly here. Listen to music, play on an Esperanto Minecraft server, etc.

3. What is Esperanto doing for you?
I'm an English teacher, and although I knew some linguistics before Esperanto, knowing it does make a lot of concepts clear and transparent. Also, I like being able to talk to folks from a different linguistic background on an even playing field; no one is using their first language.

4. Do you feel like you're part of the Esperanto Community?
Sure! I'm not invested in talk -about- Esperanto so much (the gender controversy, etc) but for example I love talking about international events with folks through a non-English lens.

I haven't been to a kongreso yet, but I'm hoping to this summer.

5. What does the Esperanto Community do for you?
Gives me someone to talk to!

6. What identities are formulated through your use of Esperanto?
I'm an optimist and a futurist, and although la Fina Venko seems unreachable, I do think it's nice to aim for it anyway. As an English teacher, I see how much the world wants to learn a common language and I see how English is pretty inadequate for the task (in its current form).

7. Why do you continue to use Esperanto?
For fun! I think it's helping to stretch my 'language learning' muscles a bit too; suddenly learning Polish cases doesn't seem so scary!

8. What does access to an Esperanto Chat Room or Forum mean to you?
I can chat to folks and get help when I need it. ^_^

1. How did you get involved in Esperanto?
I've always enjoyed learning languages. While watching Game of Thrones (no kidding) I became fleetingly interested in the constructed languages on the show, Dothraki and High Valyrian. This led to me Googling constructed languages which led to planned languages which led to Esperanto.
2. How do you use Esperanto in your daily life?
lernu! forums and the occasional Esperanto lesson which I give to my kids.
3. What is Esperanto doing for you?
Keeping my brain engaged, Whatever part of the brain is responsible for language is working hard. My learning of French has now taken a back seat. It gives me pleasure when I work read through an article successfully. I also like reading new compound nouns, weird but true.
4. Do you feel like you're part of the Esperanto Community?
To a small degree, yes. I'm still quite new and I've yet to meet a fellow Esperantist face-to-face (although that might change tomorrow). But I do feel a connection with the other people who have made the same effort I have and who take the same pleasure in the language that I do.
5. What does the Esperanto Community do for you?
Not much yet, but see my answer to Q4 above.
6. What identities are formulated through your use of Esperanto?
My feeling of identity as a world citizen and my feeling of commonality with all people preceded my learning of Esperanto. They are partly why the language appeals to me.
7. Why do you continue to use Esperanto?
I really like it! Zamenhof invented the language which I would have, if only I had been smart enough! There's just a few shortcomings in Esperanto that I disagree with. If I stopped now I would miss it.
8. What does access to an Esperanto Chat Room or Forum mean to you?
So far, my only means of communication with other Esperantists. Without access it would be a much lonelier experience. I tried learning Welsh for a while and gave up partly because there was no equivalent to lernu! forums (also because my progress in that language was like trying to nail jelly to a wall)!

Good luck with your paper!

In the other thread I misunderstood the questions, sorry...! Well, I was replying really late at night, it's no wonder.

1. How did you get involved in Esperanto?
I was reading in Faroese and Esperanto was mentioned (http://www.fmn.fo/esp/esp.htm), then I started using Faroese-Esperanto resources to learn Faroese but I started accidentally learning Esperanto as I went. After realizing how much the Esperanto grammar would help with Faroese (and other languages), I started learning Esperanto itself.

3. What is Esperanto doing for you?
I'm getting accurate news, info, and tutorials from all over the world (most of what I grew up with as an American was either propaganda or "nothing" ). I'm also improving my grammar a lot in general which helps with the other languages I'm learning. And I'm reading stuff that can't be found in English.

Probably the most useful help is that I can just go and message anyone I find who knows Esperanto and ask them questions I have about their country or language, and they'll probably answer me lol!! Also I have some friends who are REALLY bad at English, so convincing them to learn Esperanto makes it easier to talk to them.

4. Do you feel like you're part of the Esperanto Community?
Not really. I don't go to any clubs, I haven't been to any conventions, and even though I make stuff in it and convince people to learn it, I still feel disconnected.

If I were part of a big forum, as in a more general one than Lernu, I would feel like I was. It will probably just take more time too, I haven't even known it for a year yet.

6. What identities are formulated through your use of Esperanto?
Probably just "Esperanto-user"? lol. Maybe "minority-language user". I know at least one language with fewer speakers than Esperanto, but in Esperanto you really feel the pain of knowing you can't even visit a certain town to speak it at the grocery store. It's not even a standard keyboard on Macs when much smaller languages have them. At least there are books in the library in it...

7. Why do you continue to use Esperanto?
It makes me happy to think that I could be totally fluent in a foreign language. I've lived in two foreign countries so far but am only fluent in English so I feel bad every time I talk to someone. Everyone else here knows at least one other language very well, usually two. So it makes me feel more like I'm on the same level as them.

Plus it's fun to create content in it. People really appreciate when you make things in Esperanto! I get more appreciation than when I make things in English. Also, the more I use it the better my grammar in other languages gets, automatically.

1. How did you get involved in Esperanto?
A few years ago, I remembered how much I had enjoyed studying Japanese as a tween, so I thought that picking up another language to learn could be a lot of fun, but I wasn't sure which one.

As a programmer, the idea popped into my head of constructing a human language, much like how you see people making up new programming languages all the time.

So I basically Googled for "Human invented language", and spent a little time reading about Esperanto and Lojban, but ultimately stuck with Esperanto.

2. How do you use Esperanto in your daily life?
I listen to music on my commute & at work (Spotify, Muzaiko), I'm in the freenode ##esperanto channel pretty much every day, and I spend time studying, reading about it, and reading stuff in it - always looking for new content to consume, always figuring out ways I can incorporate it into my programming, animation, etc.

3. What is Esperanto doing for you?
It's become somewhat of an obsession, akin to my obsession with programming.
It's also given me a new goal in life -- to travel the world and meet lots of people. I wasn't interested in travel before I began learning Esperanto.

4. Do you feel like you're part of the Esperanto Community?
I feel like I'm part of some sub-communities. I don't hang around Lernu much anymore, but I have sub-groups of Esperantist friends online, and I'm in the IRC channel a lot, and I check the subreddits.

5. What does the Esperanto Community do for you?
I like the support and friendship I get from my friends, I like finding other excited people to practice with, or collaborate with, or whatever. I think we're all kind of excited about Esperanto and the energy feeds off itself.

6. What identities are formulated through your use of Esperanto?
Esperanto has gotten me interested in other conlangs as well, why conlangs are made, etc. and I love mixing Esperanto with my other hobbies (HAM Radio, animating, programming, etc.), so now it's an underlying "thing" in most of what I do. @_@

7. Why do you continue to use Esperanto?
I love Esperanto, and I love the energy, when you find positive people to be around.

8. What does access to an Esperanto Chat Room or Forum mean to you?
Having ways to communicate is important to me, especially the IRC channel. There aren't any local groups in Kansas City, so I'd be missing out on a lot of socializing in Esperanto, otherwise.