In fact how did you even heard for it ?

I first heard about it in school in the early 80s, but didn't learn anything. It must have been having a revival, or the teacher was an Esperantist.

Much later on (just a few years ago actually) I bought a copy of TY Esperanto for 50 cents in a withdrawn library book sale. Slowly, I've pursued it.

Skimmed through random wikipedia articles
found it and it looked like fun
needed a new hoby
now I know a third language

My parents told me about it when I as nine years old. I've always thought it was a wonderful idea. I'm retired now, so I have time to pursue it.

Shortly after Teach Yourself was first published I came across it in a local bookshop. After having read it for half an hour in the bookshop I thought I had better buy a copy to placate the shop-keeper.

I had, like most of my generation, been taught French at school but was very aware of my inability to speak French with a Frenchman.

It was apparent from my bookshop study that a certain mastery of Esperanto was going to be arrived at fairly quickly, and I had always fancied the idea of being able to speak a foreign language fluently.

This was somewhat influenced by seeing in films of the time (we are talking about the 1960's) the colonial 'bwana' turning to his native servant and firing off an instruction in the local lingo, or the suave Englishman abroad rattling off his requirements in 'foreign' to the local hotelier, policeman etc. All of which seemed very 'cool'.

In my youth, abroad was still exotic, and romantic, a place of adventure, things could happen there that wouldn't ever happen in England. For most people the 60's in England weren't 'swinging', they were just an extension of the 50's.

So very naively, I conceived of Esperanto as a ticket to ride an escapist Orient Express into a world outside the normal humdrum existence.

Actually, I did once have an experience behind the Iron Curtain that could have come straight out of a cold war spy novel.

I came across Teach yourself Esperanto by Cresswell and Hartley in a charity bookshop, and came across the lernu! website about the same time. Why I took it up is a harder question. I guess I was drawn by the idea of an international language that was designed to be easy to learn.

sudanglo:
Actually, I did once have an experience behind the Iron Curtain that could have come straight out of a cold war spy novel.

Sounds interesting, would you be willing to share this story?

I read about Esperanto a few years ago on Benny Lewis' fi3m blog. I decided to start learning a second language this year, and as I didn't have a specific language in mind I decided to start with an easier one. I also believe in having a relatively easy to learn IAL.

I was always fascinated with foreign languages. When I was a kid, I would pick up a book on learning Spanish or American Sign Language and look up words, trying to translate English sentences word for word. When I was in high school I took French. (I wanted to take Latin, but they discontinued it at my high school the year before I got there.) It was sort of a shock then to realize that foreign languages were more than just memorizing vocabulary.

The first time I remember hearing about Esperanto was in a Time magazine article (I think) about Esperanto speakers, and how they would meet each other while traveling, and sometimes hook up with each other. THAT sounded cool. The idea of the language, certainly, but especially the hooking up part.

I went to the USSR when I was 13 and learned some Russian phrases before I went. (The phrase for "I'm lost" came in handy.) I traveled through Europe in college and would try to cram as much of a language as I could the day before I arrived in a new country. I had to go to the emergency room in Budapest in 1990, and try to communicate where no one spoke English. I didn't speak Hungarian or German. They finally found a doctor who could speak French and we muddled through.

After college I went to Tokyo to teach English. I learned a bit of Japanese, which was a challenge. In a bookstore between classes I found Teach Yourself Esperanto and after reading it a couple of times in the store, got hooked. It was so much easier than Japanese. I bought the Teach Yourself dictionary and read it cover to cover, highlighting words that seemed useful. I dropped by the Japanese Esperanto Association (or whatever they were called) to browse through their books and attempt some stilted conversation with the people there. I even joined the UEA and got a pen pal (in those pre-Internet days) from a woman in Ukraine. She sent me a picture of her standing next to a windmill that looked like it was from, like, 1940, but it was a recent picture.

When I moved to New York, I looked up an Esperanto office near the UN but couldn't find it. A couple of years later I went to a Landa Kongreso when it was held in New York, at FIT. I learned that I needed a lot of practice speaking, as I still do. I did spend a pleasant afternoon playing chess with an old Eastern European man and trying my best to communicate.

Por forgesi la anglan

My reason for study Esperanto is very "nerdful": In the 1994 movie "Street Fighter" the official language of Shadaloo's nation is Esperanto, so I became curious for this language and, because I had a lot of free time in past (aka unemployed) to occupy, I decided to learn it.

Now I'm part of an elite of persons through all the world that can communicate in this language and know new persons; I saw some videos of nationals "renkontigoj" on Youtube and they seems very fun (and full of pretty ladies ), unfortunately I did not still take the courage for join on it, so for now I'm lone wolf.

I also noticed the knowledge of Esperanto in my CV, also if his relevance in the job's world is almost zero unfortunately, anyway I'm pride of it because it's alwasy a score on my life, isn'it?