there is a strange abreviation in this forum:& n b s p ; (without spaces - but when I copy it in it disappears) what is this/

robbkvasnak:there is a strange abreviation in this forum:& n b s p ; (without spaces - but when I copy it in it disappears) what is this/

It is an html entity. Nbsp means non-breakable space. And that is what this html entity does: it is a space which prevents a line break. You use it instead of the normal space of you don't want the words surrounding it to end up on different lines.

the fact that it shows up in this thread is due to some error. The ampersand is encoded and hence the entity is broken. Apparently at some time in the history of lernu this thread has been doubly encoded.

Mi preferas skribi en esperanto (eo). La mondo havas nun plurajn centrojn: Chinio, Usono, Europo, Rusio, Barato, Brazilo, Japonio ktp. La hegemonio de Usono malkreskighas kaj la bezono de neutra kaj facila Internacia lingvo (Ilo) kreskighas rapide.

La progresio de Esperanto estis la pli rapida: de 100 personoj en 1887 al du milionoj hodiau (X 20000).La lernado de la ILo estas meznombre dekfoje pli rapida ol grandaj potencaj lingvoj. Tempo estas mono. Por tre bone paroli 10.000 horoj estas meznombre necesaj por potenca multnacia lingvo kaj 1000 horoj por e-o (Claude Piron, La defio de la lingvoj). Plie E-o povas esti lernota de chiuj homoj,

La chefaj bremsoj al Eo estas lau mi la ne-instruado en la lernejoj kaj la malgranda uzo kiel traduk-lingvo au pontlingvo.
E-o estas la pli bona saltotabulo por lerni aliajn lingvojn kaj la pli bona pontlingvo por la klareco de la tradukoj. Kun la teknika progreso kaj la konkurenco, pli kaj pli da registaroj kaj firmoj kreskigos E-on. Tio estas ilia intereso.

morico:Mi preferas skribi en esperanto (eo).

But this is the English forum.

With Google Translate a little (...) improved.

The world now has several centers: China, the United States, Europe, Russia, India, Brazil, Japan etc. The hegemony of the United States is decreasing and the need for a neutral and easy international language is increasing rapidly.

The progression of Esperanto was the fastest: from 100 people in 1887 to two million today (X 20 000) .The international language (IL) is learning, on average, ten times faster than large powerful languages. Time is money. For a very good talk 10 000 hours are on average necessary for a powerful multinational language and 1000 hours for esperanto (Claude Piron, The challenge of the languages). Furthermore Esperanto can be learned of all men.
http://claudepiron.free.fr/articlesenanglais/commu...

For five billions men, the saving in time is five billions multiplied per 9000 hours are 45000 billions hours (45 000 000 000 000 hours). If one hour is paid on average 3 dollars/hour, the saving is 135 000 billions dollars. The exit of poverty can be faster.

The main brakes to Esperanto (Eo) are, according to me, the non-teaching in the schools and the small use as a translation language or a bridge language.

Eo is the best springboard for learning other foreign languages and the best bridge language for the clearness of the translations. With the technical progress and the competition, more and more governments, firms, associations and families will encourage to study Esperanto. It is in their interest.

morico:Eo is the best springboard for learning other foreign languages and the best bridge language for the clearness of the translations.

Rather than English, which I hear Google uses to bridge between languages, much to the loss of translation accuracy .

I have the impression that the use of Esperanto is growing quickly. I notice it a lot on Facebook. When I respond to a post in another language using Esperanto there are almost always new posters whom I have never seen before. And nobody takes offense. Nobody has ever answered "what language is that?" or "write in x-language, I don't understand". If they are at all interested in what I have written they probably do what I do and copy it into Google translate to see what language it is. Recently someone answered me in Romanian. I could see that they had understood me but they didn't know how to answer in Esperanto. That was a great experience.

kannouteki_neko:Does anyone believe that Esperanto will one day have a truly world-wide practical use? After a hundred years of existence it hasn't really gotten very far.
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I've said it before and I'll say it again: practical is highly subjective. There's an earlier thread in the English forum about "So, what is there to do in Esperanto other than study" that has some similar lines of discussion, as well as several from a month or two ago that I cannot find. I posted about how the "practicality" of general use is very much a false argument. Where I live Spanish is probably the 2nd most spoken language. There is at least one Mexican food market and there are probably a couple dozen Mexican restaurants. I have to go far out of my way to use Spanish to buy fish, and even if I were in a location where English would not suffice I would need at most rudimentary Spanish to get the job done. Unless I am really into Spanish culture and have a few good friends who only speak Spanish there will never be a need for me (in my line of work) to really know Spanish. I can easily learn the handful of phrases I need to order food at restaurants, shop at a market, tell a taxi where to go, etc. from a $5 Spanish phrasebook.

In my position as a native English speaker, Esperanto offers to me far more actual utility in the area that I am interested in: actually using it to have meaningful conversations with people from all over the world. I studied Spanish for most of my schooling and I was able to use Esperanto at a much higher level after only a few months of study. With only a dictionary I could read and write anything, and after only a couple years of Esperanto as a hobby I'm now able to listen to podcasts and such and understand almost all of what is said. I guess my point is, unless you see a real, truly possible use case where you are using French every day for a fulfilling purpose, don't fool yourself into betting your valuable time on "practical". You define practical for yourself.

Esperanto is far from dead, and my feeling is that it is growing again thanks to the internet. There are groups promoting Esperanto for various purposes. I know there is at least one group in the UK that is trying to get them to teach Esperanto as a first foreign language to primary school children, and they have evidence to back up the propaedeutic claims (kids learn French faster after studying Esperanto than if they studied French the whole time). There is a TED talk on that subject.

Programmers have a very similar issue when deciding what programming languages to study. There are "practical" languages like Java and C++, and there are beautiful and simple languages like Scheme that see no practical use but are considered by many to be the best languages to actually teach programming. Esperanto is the Scheme of spoken languages. It shows you how to learn and use a foreign language properly.

kaŝperanto:

kannouteki_neko:Does anyone believe that Esperanto will one day have a truly world-wide practical use? After a hundred years of existence it hasn't really gotten very far.
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I've said it before and I'll say it again...

You are responding to a ten year old question.

In my opinion, learning any foreign language is USELESS unless you're planning to live somewhere that speaks it. Most languages requires you to spend at least a few years actively learning and practicing it before you're able to understand an average conversation. And what are you going to do when you are at that level? You'll not be approached by a lost tourist who only speaks that language and not English. You're not going to need to know the language so that you can understand a movie, you know you can easily find English subtitles or just watch a better movie. You'll not be in a life and death situation where knowing that language can save your life.

However, that doesn't mean learning foreign languages is pointless. I find language learning pretty fun, and that's the main reason I do it. It's no different from playing video games or watching videos all day. And also, you get to bragging rights knowing another language.