Armand6:

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.

Do these Chinese Esperantists have broken Esperanto?
http://esperanto.cri.cn/

Armand perhaps you would care to look at the definition of Loĝi en PIV - pli-malpli daŭre restadi en loko, kie oni kutime vivas.

In any case, you may be overlooking an important point about what constitutes broken English compared with what would be considered broken Esperanto.

Broken English is English which the native speakers would not use. Correct English = the highly idiomatic usage of the native speakers.

Largely, Esperanto is not subject to this constraint. If a sentence is clear and does not violate (the relatively simple) grammatical rules, or override lexical boundaries, then it tends to be acceptable. It is certainly not clear that (for example) 'Kiam mi vivis en Francujo, mi ...' is unacceptable.

The requirement to conform to the rigidities of English as it is spoken by denaskaj anglalingvanoj is a very significant component of the difficulty of English for foreign learners. Esperanto (a second language for all) is much more flexible, so that deviations from what a spertulo might say do not offend, or cause difficulty in comprehension.

Armand6:

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"?

Good Esperanto is achieved much more easily than good English. Even though the opportunities for listening to models of English are absolutely everywhere, learners still make elementary mistakes (like you putting 'the' where it it not required; twice above).

Rectifying mistakes and bad habits in Esperanto and fixing similar mistakes in English doesn't carry the same value. Spelling and pronunciation in English is so haphazard and irregular that people learning will spend far more time on this than they would in Esperanto.

If you actually listen to Chinese Esperanto radio, you'll hear that it's not all 'Epelanto'. Chinese people in the 21st century are sure to have learned some English at school (maybe other Western languages too) and that's enough of a preparation for Esperanto, but then what's the difference whether they begin with English or Esperanto? The one can assist the other if a person is completely unfamiliar with Western languages.

I too would be interested in data to show how quickly people progressed from scratch in both languages. English has an advantage because it is already everywhere, so there is a risk of bias built in.

sudanglo:Correct English = the highly idiomatic usage of the native speakers.

No, that is the stylistically correct English. Esperanto (in your interpretation, at least) has no styles or idioms at all, so if you can deal with that, you can deal with the international English too. If you put those double standards aside, a "broken English" is what it is: acceptable but improbable constructions.

Vestitor: what's the difference whether they begin with English or Esperanto?

When you can learn English in, let's say, 6 years, and Esperanto in 5 and half, Esperanto is suddenly not as easy as it is presumed.

Armand6:

Vestitor: what's the difference whether they begin with English or Esperanto?

When you can learn English in, let's say, 6 years, and Esperanto in 5 and half, Esperanto is suddenly not as easy as it is presumed.

No-one does though, do they?

Armand6:

Vestitor: what's the difference whether they begin with English or Esperanto?

When you can learn English in, let's say, 6 years, and Esperanto in 5 and half, Esperanto is suddenly not as easy as it is presumed.

Do you have evidence for this claim - namely, that Esperanto takes 5,5 years to learn for someone who learns English in 6? (I might have missed something earlier in the thread.)

I don't think I ever claimed that Esperanto is easy, only that it tends to be easier than competing languages, other things being equal. Surely you don't mean to say that (all else being equal) English would be just as difficult/easy with no irregular verbs, as it would be with them.

I still think that English speakers - especially Americans - have the hardest time wih Esperanto, partly because of a poor grammatical background, partly because of the highly idiomatic nature of English which cannot be translated literally without a near-total loss of meaning (like when a beginner says *Mi havas iri al lito* instead of Mi devas enlitighi).

Tempodivalse:
Do you have evidence for this claim - namely, that Esperanto takes 5,5 years to learn for someone who learns English in 6?

Those are example numbers, you can give us some actual statistics if it is available.

Surely you don't mean to say that (all else being equal) English would be just as difficult/easy with no irregular verbs, as it would be with them.

That's easy: you take the syllabus and calculate how many hours are allotted for a particular activity or topic. It is clear that irregular verbs are very small part of it. If some Esperantist actually did this, we wouldn't have to discuss about Esperanto difficulty.
And seriously, do you know any language where there is a verb 'впостелиться'? I don't.

sudanglo:{Poster} perhaps you would care to look at the definition of Loĝi en PIV - pli-malpli daŭre restadi en loko, kie oni kutime vivas.

In any case, you may be overlooking an important point about what constitutes broken English compared with what would be considered broken Esperanto.

Please don't feed the troll. There is someone who posts on the (old-fashioned) internet newsgroup soc.culture.esperanto under one name, and all he does is be disagreeable and contradictory. Whether a frequent poster here is the same individual under a different name I cannot say, but he seems to be using the same tactic: just be contradictory to nearly everything anyone says about Esperanto. If such individuals are totally ignored, eventually they may just go away.

Armand6:

Tempodivalse:
Do you have evidence for this claim - namely, that Esperanto takes 5,5 years to learn for someone who learns English in 6?

Those are example numbers, you can give us some actual statistics if it is available.

That onus is on you chief; you're the one who made the claim!