I haven't been around Lernu for ages -- I got overtaken by other things, and somehow my study of E-o found itself not so much on the back burner as stuck at the back of the fridge behind those jars of pickles that nobody really likes but are too expensive to throw away.

Two things happened to bring me back. First, I found myself in an argument with a friend about the value of Esperanto. As I was arguing I realized that I was being a hypocrite, mounting a robust defence of the language, but not actually participating in it.

Then I heard of the death of Claude Piron. I'm not sure why that should be a prompt to return to study, but it was.

I find that I still have most of the vocabulary I had, but my 'ear' for Esperanto (which was never great) has more or less disappeared. So it's back to those mp3's of Gerda Malaperis for me!

Anyway, I just wanted to wish everyone a belated happy new year and say that I'm looking forward to joining conversations here again.

Welcome back Richard

Welcome back. I've put E-o on the back shelf myself for periods, when other things beckoned. One thing that gave me an incentive to study it more diligently last year was deciding to go to the Somera Festivalo when I knew that I would have to survive in the language all week. So I studied, went along and stumbled through it somehow (I enjoyed it too). You may wish to consider this or other events like the Brita kongreso in May in Southport, or the UK in July in Rotterdam, to give you an incentive to prepare for them. Good luck!

Thanks for the welcome back. That's a good tip about the kongreso. I wish I could go, but my chances of being able to get away in May are somewhere between negligible and non-existant... Maybe next year.