Armand6:

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

It doesn't make much sense.

It makes a lot of sense actually, but then you're pretty obstinate about being in opposition to this fact.

Armand6:

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

Dutch has a huge Romance vocabulary...

No, it doesn't as a matter of fact, and certainly not one in daily use.

Can you see the difference between agglutinative languages with several layers of grammar morphemes and inflective languages with a couple of suffixes and endings?
Also, building words from suffixes and terminations, like in Russian, has no connection to agglutinative languages, or Asian languages, or whatever.

Vestitor:It makes a lot of sense actually

So a person can make literary science analyses of literature works in English, but "struggles" with the language itself. It does not make sense.

Alkanadi:

sudanglo:...the introduction of Esperanto into the school curriculum - which is, by the way, the only route by which it seems one could achieve la fina venko...

I think that Esperanto will achieve fina venko once it has a significant tangible reward.

In Canada, people learn French from grade 4 to grade 7 as a minimum government requirement. Try going to anyone on the western side of Canada and ask them "Excuse me, do you know where the washroom is?" in French. Nobody, will understand you.

On the flip side, go to the eastern side of Canada and ask them "Excuse me, do you know where the washroom is?" in English. They will understand.

When Esperanto is appealing to the masses then people will learn it. Because it is so easy to learn, it will have a snowball effect. It just needs a little nudge.

Your example of the "washroom" made me chuckle. We went to visit my cousin and her husband in Toronto. On the second day, we went on a trip to some of the sights. My husband and I both had to "go" so we left my cousin and her husband sitting in the park and looked for the toilet. Well, we asked several people where the bathroom was but nobody understood us (yes, they were all L1 English speakers). Finally, someone said: Oh, you mean the washroom! - For us, a washroom is where you do your laundry but since that seemed to be the only solution we went where he directed us and voila! urinals and a sink! hehehe - just shows to go you!

Tempodivalse: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

Actually, as a beginner the combination of Dutch, English and Japanese has helped me a lot so far. The basics of Esperanto grammar are a lot more like Japanese than any European language I've learned a bit of before. Japanese also has a similar basic sentence structure with an accusative suffix and variable word order, and it has a correlatives system very similar (though not as expansive) as the Esperanto one.

And the way the vowels and a couple of the consonants are pronounced in Esperanto is also a lot closer to Japanese. Dutch and English tend to weaken or diphthongize a lot of vowels, and rarely have the Esperanto c-sound as the first sound of a word.

Almost anything that is usually a difficulty for learning Esperanto is found in one or two of these three languages.

Vestitor:

Armand6:Dutch has a huge Romance vocabulary...

No, it doesn't as a matter of fact, and certainly not one in daily use.

Yeah, while Dutch does have its share of influences from French (more so in the Dutch spoken in Belgium, where about half the nation speaks Dutch and the other French), English has been influenced by Romance languages on a much deeper level. Mostly because English almost died out at one point in time, when the French-speaking Normans took over England.

Alkanadi: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.

Well yeah, most Dutch speakers are at least intermediate English speakers, and have been forced to endure years of not just English but also French and German classes in school. So almost anyone already has some experience with learning languages, which helps a lot when learning a new one.

In my case I have been (more or less) actively learning foreign languages since I was 9 or so. (first English, then Japanese, with a side of German and French) Add to that my fascination for linguistics, and it shouldn't surprise you that general interlingual understanding of grammar is fairly high. And I always had an above average sense of perfectionism when it comes to accents, which over the years has made me relatively skilled in hearing and imitating nuances in accents, too.

Armand6:

Vestitor:It makes a lot of sense actually

So a person can make literary science analyses of literature works in English, but "struggles" with the language itself. It does not make sense.

You mean like the thousands of students who study languages at school and university and still aren't good enough for everyday conversations in target languages.

Your own English is decidedly faulty, despite your claims. Ergo...

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.

You don't see remarkable syntactical similarities between Slavic languages and EO? As a Russian speaker I am continually surprised by the similarities "beneath the surface". More than once, when I have been uncertain about a certain grammatical facet of Esperanto, I have asked - "How would you do this in Russian?" - and almost invariably I have arrived at the correct answer. Not so with English.

Sure, lexicon is not quite as similar, but long-term it is the syntax which causes more problem for people trying to become fully fluent - just ask any monoglot anglophone who has memorised half the dictionary but still can't confidently put a long sentence together (hm, do I use ke, tio, or tiu? - Slavic speakers will rarely pause).

Vestitor:You mean like the thousands of students who study languages at school and university and still aren't good enough for everyday conversations

That is a norm for a foreign language, and Esperanto won't change anything here.

But you were talking about English majors struggling with English, not "some" students.

Tempodivalse:"How would you do this in Russian?"

How would you do a phrase like 'vidi iun danci' in Russian?

Armand6:

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

It doesn't make much sense.

It makes sense and I see it as a failure of the University system that is using outdated methods of instruction.

I have met many people who have had mild exposure to English their whole life, they have graduated with a degree in English Literature, or some type of linguistics/translation degree and they still struggle a lot with speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills. Usually, these people do way better at reading and writing because that is what the University focused on.

This person says that it took a short time to learn Esperanto but it took them 20 years to learn English:
http://www.esperantofre.com/eroj/ilo04a.htm