Vestitor:That's the most false of conclusions.

Not at all. English (or French/German/etc) prepares you for the Western European grammar and language concepts. If the person never heard about a Western language before, it will similarly take him years to learn Esperanto first.

Armand6:

Vestitor:That's the most false of conclusions.

Not at all. English (or French/German/etc) prepares you for the Western European grammar and language concepts. If the person never heard about a Western language before, it will similarly take him years to learn Esperanto first.

Where do you draw these conclusions from?

Armand6:

Vestitor:That's the most false of conclusions.

Not at all. English (or French/German/etc) prepares you for the Western European grammar and language concepts. If the person never heard about a Western language before, it will similarly take him years to learn Esperanto first.

That was precisely my point (which of course you selectively quoted); it could have been any of these languages. The fact remains that Esperanto ability overtook four years of university English. You can complain about 'evidence' until the cows come home, but the fact so many people say they managed Esperanto after failing to learn national languages runs contrary to your position.

I already learned two foreign languages before having a go at Esperanto and it is by far the easiest in comparison to anything I have started learning since. This is not unique to me.

This 'English is easy...Esperanto is just as hard as any language... ' mantra is getting boring.

Alkanadi:

Armand6:

Vestitor:That's the most false of conclusions.

Not at all. English (or French/German/etc) prepares you for the Western European grammar and language concepts. If the person never heard about a Western language before, it will similarly take him years to learn Esperanto first.

Where do you draw these conclusions from?

Thin air.

Vestitor:I already learned two foreign languages before having a go at Esperanto and it is by far the easiest in comparison to anything I have started learning since. This is not unique to me.

I spent 4 years in a French immersion school when I was a kid, yet I can't speak, write, read, or understand anything in French.

This is from the Esperanto course admins, which teach at Standford University

Guarantee!!!

If you come to class and do the homework, i personally guarantee that, unless you have specific learning disabilities, you will be reading, writing and conversing in Esperanto after only 3 Academic Quarters of study.... that means that after about a year you could be ready to travel to any country on this planet, and more than likely you would have a local Esperanto contact.

http://www.esperanto.org/stanford/garantio/

Vestitor:

Armand6:

Vestitor:That's the most false of conclusions.

Not at all. English (or French/German/etc) prepares you for the Western European grammar and language concepts. If the person never heard about a Western language before, it will similarly take him years to learn Esperanto first.

That was precisely my point (which of course you selectively quoted); it could have been any of these languages. The fact remains that Esperanto ability overtook four years of university English. You can complain about 'evidence' until the cows come home, but the fact so many people say they managed Esperanto after failing to learn national languages runs contrary to your position.

I already learned two foreign languages before having a go at Esperanto and it is by far the easiest in comparison to anything I have started learning since. This is not unique to me.

This 'English is easy...Esperanto is just as hard as any language... ' mantra is getting boring.

Let's get to a compromise: Esperanto can not be as hard as English (for the speakers of any language, except English itself of course), simply because it has a regular grammar, which no "natural" language can have (as far as I know). But, of course, too, Esperanto is harder for Chinese than for, let's say, French-speaking, because French-speaking already know ~75% of the vocabulary.
There is the following hierarchy (from the easiest to the hardest): Esperanto for French - Esperanto for Chinese - English for Chinese.
Then of course one can speculate whether Esperanto for Chinese is easier or harder than English for French, but that's not the question.

Vestitor:The fact remains that Esperanto ability overtook four years of university English.

There is no evidence it 'overtook' anything. As the student in question managed to pass the English exams, it means she can speak English to some sufficient level. Her Esperanto skills were not tested at all, so we are completely in dark here.

This 'English is easy...Esperanto is just as hard as any language...

That's not a 'mantra', it's the truth. Schoolchildren who have been learning English are able to communicate, albeit limitedly, can read and even compose. Those ones who chose German can read a text aloud, without understanding, a significant part of them cannot conjugate the verb 'sein', and the brightest of them have heard about such things like 'Passiv' and 'Konjunktiv' (which they had been drilling from 9th to 11th form, by the way). The English is, therefore, an easy language.

Luib:simply because it has a regular grammar, which no "natural" language can have

Regular grammar is overrated. All natural languages contain irregularities, so we can assume that our brain has hardware acceleration of grammar.
As for English grammar, it has probably the most regular grammar among the European languages: 1 noun declension, invariable adjectives and participles, 1 verbal declension...

Armand6:

Vestitor:The fact remains that Esperanto ability overtook four years of university English.

There is no evidence it 'overtook' anything. As the student in question managed to pass the English exams, it means she can speak English to some sufficient level. Her Esperanto skills were not tested at all, so we are completely in dark here.

This 'English is easy...Esperanto is just as hard as any language...

That's not a 'mantra', it's the truth. Schoolchildren who have been learning English are able to communicate, albeit limitedly, can read and even compose. Those ones who chose German can read a text aloud, without understanding, a significant part of them cannot conjugate the verb 'sein', and the brightest of them have heard about such things like 'Passiv' and 'Konjunktiv' (which they had been drilling from 9th to 11th form, by the way). The English is, therefore, an easy language.

I mean you no disrespect by pointing out that the last sentence in your post is a perfect example of English NOT being easy.

A native speaker would write "English is, therefore, an easy language." They would not start the sentence with "The".
"The English" refers to English people, "English" refers to the language.

A more correct statement would be that Broken English is an easy language.

Bemused:A more correct statement would be that Broken English is an easy language.

Yet you are OK with broken 'Epelanto' a Chinese speaker without the Western background knowledge is likely to produce.

And do you realize that you still have waste months to stop the children from saying stuff like "Mi estas 15 jaroj" and "Mi vivas en Moskvo"?