This is what makes Esperanto the best.

"In school students can expect to study French for about 5 years, 40 weeks in the year, 4 lessons a week at about (on the average) 30 minutes for each lesson. Or, roughly, about 400 hours. By the end of this time, only about 10% of the students would receive a passing grade on a decent exam, and not all of those would be understood in France.

Esperanto is about 5 to 10 times easier to learn than French, so you would expect to take about 40 to 80 hours of study to achieve a comparable language level in Esperanto..."

Link

I have seen lots of people that graduate with degree's in English Literature, or some type of English translation, and they can barely speak or understand English.

Alkanadi:This is what makes Esperanto the best.

"In school students can expect to study French for about 5 years, 40 weeks in the year, 4 lessons a week at about (on the average) 30 minutes for each lesson. Or, roughly, about 400 hours. By the end of this time, only about 10% of the students would receive a passing grade on a decent exam, and not all of those would be understood in France.

Esperanto is about 5 to 10 times easier to learn than French, so you would expect to take about 40 to 80 hours of study to achieve a comparable language level in Esperanto..."

[url=/esperanto/course/materialo/leciono07.html]Link[/url]

I have seen lots of people that graduate with degree's in English Literature, or some type of English translation, and they can barely speak or understand English.

Compare these: -as, -is, -os, -us, -u, -i, -ant-, -int-, -ont-, -at-, -it-, -ot- (1 hour of learning)
to:
1. The English tenses (170 irregular verbs) (1 year of learning)
2. The German tenses (200 irregular verbs) (2 years of learning)
3. The French tenses (350 irregular verbs) (3 years of learning)

If this is not enough then I don't know what is.

bryku:Compare these: -as, -is, -os, -us, -u, -i, -ant-, -int-, -ont-, -at-, -it-, -ot- (1 hour of learning)
to:
1. The English tenses (170 irregular verbs) (1 year of learning)
2. The German tenses (200 irregular verbs) (2 years of learning)
3. The French tenses (350 irregular verbs) (3 years of learning)

4. The Chinese tenses (none) (0 hours of learning)

With the same argument you could sell Chinese. Maybe one should look for a feature that distinguishes Esperanto from other languages.

nornen:

bryku:Compare these: -as, -is, -os, -us, -u, -i, -ant-, -int-, -ont-, -at-, -it-, -ot- (1 hour of learning)
to:
1. The English tenses (170 irregular verbs) (1 year of learning)
2. The German tenses (200 irregular verbs) (2 years of learning)
3. The French tenses (350 irregular verbs) (3 years of learning)

4. The Chinese tenses (none) (0 hours of learning)

With the same argument you could sell Chinese. Maybe one should look for a feature that distinguishes Esperanto from other languages.

So you say that the Chinese do not express time? They do, and to learn that system one certainly needs more time than 0 hours. Your statement is all wrong:
Chinese tenses

bryku:So you say that the Chinese do not express time?

I think it is Thai that doesn't have tenses. They explicitly express the time. For example, they would say something like this:

Yesterday, I eat lunch
Today, I eat lunch
Tomorrow, I eat lunch
5 minutes ago, I eat lunch
Now, I eat lunch

If I ever make up my own language, it would definitely have this feature. I would also get rid of definite and indefinite articles. Maybe even plurals. I would reduce the amount of pronouns to about 3.

But, I still like Esperanto.

Alkanadi:

bryku:So you say that the Chinese do not express time?

I think it is Thai that doesn't have tenses. They explicitly express the time. For example, they would say something like this:

Yesterday, I eat lunch
Today, I eat lunch
Tomorrow, I eat lunch
5 minutes ago, I eat lunch
Now, I eat lunch

If I ever make up my own language, it would definitely have this feature. I would also get rid of definite and indefinite articles. Maybe even plurals. I would reduce the amount of pronouns to about 3.

But, I still like Esperanto.

To express time in such manner you need to know time expressions "yesterday", "tomorrow", "in an hour", "a minute ago", and so, thousands of them. And how would you say in such a language "mi trinkos teon" - the action is in future, but not stated when. The language has to have the means to express such things, if not by tenses, then otherwise. I still think the esperanto way is the simplest and best.

bryku:To express time in such manner you need to know time expressions "yesterday", "tomorrow", "in an hour", "a minute ago", and so, thousands of them. And how would you say in such a language "mi trinkos teon" - the action is in future, but not stated when. The language has to have the means to express such things, if not by tenses, then otherwise. I still think the esperanto way is the simplest and best.

Yah. That is a good point. Even with no tenses, you would have to teach thousands of time expressions.

Alkanadi:

bryku:So you say that the Chinese do not express time?

I think it is Thai that doesn't have tenses. They explicitly express the time. For example, they would say something like this:

Yesterday, I eat lunch
Today, I eat lunch
Tomorrow, I eat lunch
5 minutes ago, I eat lunch
Now, I eat lunch

If I ever make up my own language, it would definitely have this feature. I would also get rid of definite and indefinite articles. Maybe even plurals. I would reduce the amount of pronouns to about 3.

But, I still like Esperanto.

Vietnamese does not have tenses, tense is derived from context as in your examples.
It also has no articles, and no plurals, again meaning is derived from context.
I'm not 100% certain but I think it has fewer pronouns. Persons are referred to by name, or by relationship, whenever possible.
One would think this would make the language easier to learn, but this is offset by the tone system. The number of tones varies depending on whether the speaker is from the north, centre, or south of the country.

bryku:

nornen:

bryku:Compare these: -as, -is, -os, -us, -u, -i, -ant-, -int-, -ont-, -at-, -it-, -ot- (1 hour of learning)
to:
1. The English tenses (170 irregular verbs) (1 year of learning)
2. The German tenses (200 irregular verbs) (2 years of learning)
3. The French tenses (350 irregular verbs) (3 years of learning)

4. The Chinese tenses (none) (0 hours of learning)

With the same argument you could sell Chinese. Maybe one should look for a feature that distinguishes Esperanto from other languages.

So you say that the Chinese do not express time? They do, and to learn that system one certainly needs more time than 0 hours. Your statement is all wrong:
Chinese tenses

Please read carefully before asserting that a statement is "all wrong".
You were talking about tenses.
I was talking about tenses.
Out of nowhere you claim that I said "that the Chinese do not express time". Something I didn't say and wouldn't say, because it is not true.

Mandarin has no tenses. Full stop.

"Tense" and "time" are not the same. Some languages have quite a strict mapping between tenses and the time of action (like Esperanto), some are a bit more lax (e.g. English and Spanish uses present tense in subordinate clauses that refer to the future; German can use and generally does use present tense for the future in all situations; some languages have no mapping at all due to the lack of tenses). Doesn't even Polish use the present tense of perfective verbs for expressing future events (at least several other slavic languages do)?

Morgen gehe ich ins Kino. -> Present tense for future time.
When you come home, I will be gone. -> Present tense for future time.
Cuando llegués, ya no voy a estar. -> Present tense for future time.

If you could grok Esperanto's tenses in 1 hour of learning, why has there been a 30 years long debate about whether you form the passive voice by means of -it- or -at-? Why are there lengthy threads on this forum about x'us vs estus x'inta vs x'int'us?

I don't think that verbal grammar is a strong selling feature for Esperanto.

nornen:If you could grok Esperanto's tenses in 1 hour of learning, why has there been a 30 years long debate about whether you form the passive voice by means of -it- or -at-? Why are there lengthy threads on this forum about x'us vs estus x'inta vs x'int'us?

This was a big deal some decades ago. I wouldn't characterize it as a big deal today. By now, all of the major reference works, plus the Academy, agree on -it-. Some people insist on -at- but hardly anyone seems to get truly upset over that anymore. I would in fact say that what is considered good style has coalesced around using simple tenses versus compound tenses, because in most cases you do not need the complex tense to tell you the nuance of time. No one loves heavy use of either -at- OR -it-. (People do actually seem to get upset over okazo versus kazo)

The lernu forums, which have disproportionate numbers of beginners who are just trying to figure out how things work (and a mix of many intermediate and some advanced speakers who are trying to explain it to them, but it's not always clear which is which and whose advice is reliable), are not a good indicator of what is a hot topic in the world of Esperanto grammar.