Venkistido:

Vestitor:I still have a French book we used at school (The Longman Second French Book or something like that) and it is good, but you need something easier to get you to that level.

Wasn't there a 'Longman First French Book' ?

There was, but I only have the second one. I should have been clearer: I mean the entire course wasn't as accessible for those either working alone, or with less aptitude for language learning.

Starkmann:
* A Complete Grammar of Esperanto by Ivy Kellerman
* The International Auxiliary Language Esperanto Grammar and Commentary (old but good) by George Cox

I've also found older dictionaries and similar tools.

My questions: are these still relevant? If so, are there cautions to be aware of? Has some of, or enough of, the grammar changed to make these older works void now?

1. YES!
Those sources are still relevant.

2. Cautions:
The old way of naming fruit trees has changed. You used to take the name of the fruit and add the -uj- affix, which means 'container of'. So pomo (apple) became pomujo (literally, apple-container; understood to be apple tree). This has become obsolete. We now make a compound word for fruit trees with the root for tree (as in English). So pomo becomes pomarbo (apple-tree).

There may be one or two old-fashioned things like that in Kellerman, but I'm only aware of the fruit tree example.

I found Kellerman's explanation of the difference between tio and tiu difficult to decipher. At times Kellerman's early 20th century prose may not come across as clearly as a more modern authors, but with these books being freely available on project Gutenberg, you can consult another book or two to help clear things up.

These books also often refer to nouns as substantives -- same thing; different name.

I'm not familiar with the Cox book, but I can also recommend the American Esperanto Book (Bake; available on internet archive).

3: No, Esperanto grammar has not changed enough to make these books irrelevant. This would pretty much be impossible as Esperanto grammar is fairly well held stable by a document called the Fundamento... which I'm sure you'll learn about.

Roch:

Starkmann:

Sfinkso: In most browsers, if the text is the wrong size you can make it larger or smaller by holding the CTRL key down and pressing the + or - key, 0 resets.

Oh, I was talking about typing in the box that opens when you click Reply or New Post; it's too small to try to adjust using the Ctrl trick. Once it posts, however, it's fine.

I would try again if I were you! The entire page get enlarged! Hence, so does the posting area and the text that you type into!

Yeah, I've tried that. Sure, it works, but I have to enlarge it a lot for me to see it, which is a bit much over all. But, hey, we do what we have to do!

Thanks.

eshapard:

Starkmann:
* A Complete Grammar of Esperanto by Ivy Kellerman
* The International Auxiliary Language Esperanto Grammar and Commentary (old but good) by George Cox

I've also found older dictionaries and similar tools.

My questions: are these still relevant? If so, are there cautions to be aware of? Has some of, or enough of, the grammar changed to make these older works void now?

. . . I can also recommend the American Esperanto Book (Bake; available on internet archive).

Thanks for the input!

Starkmann:Yeah, I've tried that. Sure, it works, but I have to enlarge it a lot for me to see it, which is a bit much over all. But, hey, we do what we have to do!

Thanks.

Is this a problem for you only here, or also elsewhere? I think some browsers might have a menu where you set the default font and font size for fields that you fill in (like these here).

erinja:

Starkmann:Yeah, I've tried that. Sure, it works, but I have to enlarge it a lot for me to see it, which is a bit much over all. But, hey, we do what we have to do!

Thanks.

Is this a problem for you only here, or also elsewhere? I think some browsers might have a menu where you set the default font and font size for fields that you fill in (like these here).

Just a problem here. I've never encountered another site where the font size in a new post or reply is so small. I can, and do, increase the size of the page, and that helps, but it's just weird that the two (new posts-replies and the final output) aren't the same.

As far as I know, Firefox doesn't have a setting for adjusting font size when typing in field boxes; I wouldn't want to adjust it anyway since it's only here that I have this issue.

I just checked around a few other forums I visit and the text size in the message compose box here is indeed quite small. Something like 8 pt?

I supposed this is something that will alter with the new Lernu!

Let's hope they Lernu from their mistakes! (Bad, I know!)

eshapard:These books also often refer to nouns as substantives -- same thing; different name.

This depends on the author. Some authors use "noun" and "substantive" interchangeably, while others use "noun" for all nominal parts of speech, including substantives, adjectives, etc. Mostly in older texts you will find the latter use.