Alkanadi:Because it is so easy to learn, it will have a snowball effect.

Esperanto is easy to learn if and only if you are speaking a Romance language natively, and your culture is a Western European one. In all other cases, you have to learn tons of roots, false friends, governments, cases of different semantics, foreign language concepts, etc.
Try to internalize the Esperanto grammar in a person who doesn't know about articles, verbs 'esti', 'havi', 'fari', whose infinitives and participles do not behave like their Western cognates, who doesn't know about Western language concepts, and return to tell us it was 'easy'.

Armand6:

Alkanadi:Because it is so easy to learn, it will have a snowball effect.

Esperanto is easy to learn if and only if you are speaking a Romance language natively, and your culture is a Western European one. In all other cases, you have to learn tons of roots, false friends, governments, cases of different semantics, foreign language concepts, etc.
Try to internalize the Esperanto grammar in a person who doesn't know about articles, verbs 'esti', 'havi', 'fari', whose infinitives and participles do not behave like their Western cognates, who doesn't know about Western language concepts, and return to tell us it was 'easy'.

It is harder for people who don't speak romance languages, however, China has a huge Esperanto movement. According to one youtuber, Chinese people can learn Esperanto after 4 years of University, and Chinese students that choose English as their major, still struggle with it after they graduate.

http://esperanto.cri.cn/

It seems like people from the Netherlands can pick up Esperanto in a few months. You should hear them on Telegram. It is amazing. Or they are lying about being beginners.

Esperanto is easy to learn if and only if you are speaking a Romance language natively, and your culture is a Western European one.

"One Chinese Esperanto speaker described Esperanto as a linguistic handshake. When two people shake hands they both reach out halfway."
http://www.esperanto.net/veb/faq-9.html

Here is a nice blog about someone with first hand experience with Chinese Esperantists.

"I was 3 weeks in China in July 2004. I didn't have any difficulty to communicate with Chinese people who spoke Esperanto. I had problems with a group of young people who had studied Esperanto during only 3 months, but I could communicate well with anybody that had learned Esperanto at least during six months."
http:

//www.esperantofre.com/eroj/ilo04a.htm[/url]

6 months is less time than it has taken me. It has taken me over a year to become an Esperantistaĉo.

"One Chinese Esperanto speaker described Esperanto as a linguistic handshake. When two people shake hands they both reach out halfway."[/quote]I love that. Isn't it already a gesture of goodwill to one's fellow, when one has taken the trouble to learn the international language?

Alkanadi:

Esperanto is easy to learn if and only if you are speaking a Romance language natively, and your culture is a Western European one.

"One Chinese Esperanto speaker described Esperanto as a linguistic handshake. When two people shake hands they both reach out halfway."
http://www.esperanto.net/veb/faq-9.html

Here is a nice blog about someone with first hand experience with Chinese Esperantists.
"I was 3 weeks in China in July 2004. I didn't have any difficulty to communicate with Chinese people who spoke Esperanto. I had problems with a group of young people who had studied Esperanto during only 3 months, but I could communicate well with anybody that had learned Esperanto at least during six months."
http://www.esperantofre.com/eroj/ilo04a.htm

6 months is less time than it has taken me. It has taken me over a year to become an Esperantistaĉo.

This is one of those debates that gets going from time to time.

A handful of studies have indicated that under controlled conditions, fluency in a Romance or Indo-European languages shortens the time it takes to learn Esperanto. (And honestly, do you really need a citation to believe that a language that is built from those blocks has that effect?)

This is, in any plain meaning of the word, unfair. I side with most of the people here and the Chinese Esperantists being quoted that the benefits of Esperanto outweigh that unevenness---and that it is a whole lot less uneven than, say, English. But we're kidding ourselves if we don't think Esperanto has Europe and its languages in its bones and that that doesn't create barriers.

Of course Esperanto is European-centric - but that's only a good criticism if you insist that Esperanto is (near-)equally easy for everyone.

If you know a bunch of European languages already, Esperanto should be quite easy - especially if one of them is a Slavic tongue. If you know a bunch of Asian languages, probably it will be much less of a help due to fewer similarities in the grammar and lexicon - though some concepts of Esperanto, such as the agglutination and word-building rules, will be quite intuitive to a speaker of Finnish or Chinese.

Alkanadi:Chinese people can learn Esperanto after 4 years of University

And this is attested by whom? Have you read the short story called "An exam in Budapest"?

Chinese students that choose English as their major, still struggle with it after they graduate.

It doesn't make much sense.

people from the Netherlands can pick up Esperanto in a few months.

Dutch has a huge Romance vocabulary and is a Western language by itself.

When two people shake hands they both reach out halfway.

So, instead of Engrish we would have to deal with "Epelanto"? Why do you think the latter is better than former?

Tempodivalse:Esperanto should be quite easy - especially if one of them is a Slavic tongue.

Esperanto is almost as hard as English for a Slavic person, such as this Russian here.

some concepts of Esperanto, such as the agglutination and word-building rules

Agglutination in Esperanto? Where?
Esperanto word-building is taken very literally from the Germanic languages and have no parallels in Slavic ones.

Armand6:

Tempodivalse:Esperanto should be quite easy - especially if one of them is a Slavic tongue.

Esperanto is almost as hard as English for a Slavic person, such as this Russian here.

some concepts of Esperanto, such as the agglutination and word-building rules

Agglutination in Esperanto? Where?

Um, everywhere? Agglutination means "add parts without changing other parts" unlike inflection (Spanish: comER changes to comO, comES, etc). Contrast that with "posttagmezo" afternoon.

Armand6:Esperanto word-building is taken very literally from the Germanic languages and have no parallels in Slavic ones.

Really? a LOT of Russian words are built up of roots and affixes, just like Esperanto and German.

MrMosier:
Really? a LOT of Russian words are built up of roots and affixes, just like Esperanto and German.

Biographies of Zamenhof mention that the whole root-affix idea came from his noticing the frequent use of the Russian suffix -skaya meaning "place".