In my opinion, the cause of eternal beginners is lack of time committed to learning the language. The tools you use are not nearly as important as the time you put into learning Esperanto or any other language.

I started learning Japanese on my own by going through a few beginner textbook/CD courses and some Japanese-learning podcasts. Then I went through an intermediate textbook/CD course, and listened to more podcasts. I studied the vocabulary and made sure I understood the grammar points. After that, I thought, "OK, I'm at an intermediate level in Japanese now. Yay!" WRONG. When I went out and talked to people, I could barely string simple sentences together, much less those I studied in my intermediate course. I felt like I could speak only at a low or mid-beginner level.

I did some research and found that to progress, I needed less learning and more using. I did well to learn the foundations of Japanese; now I had to put it to use, and I needed to put time into it as well. Simply put, the more time you put in, the more you will improve. And it's a struggle to get time in, for various reasons: work, married life, household chores, errands, other hobbies, etc. I committed to spend at least 30 minutes a day just reading stuff in Japanese meant for Japanese people. It could be a book, Twitter, news on the Internet, anything. I don't always get that 30 minutes in each day, but I do most days, and it has helped me a lot. I'm learning a lot, and it has even helped my listening and speaking. I am not yet where I want to be in Japanese (which is fluent), but I can say that I am at an intermediate level in all four skills.

It's going to take time for me to reach fluency in Japanese because it is a very different language from my native English, but I know I'll get there if I keep putting in the time. Imagine how good a person would be in Esperanto if they did the same; it doesn't take nearly as long for English speakers as it does Japanese. But a person would definitely have to put in the time. It's a lifestyle change. You have to do something often. Go to Lernu! and write a post every day. Read a book or a website in Esperanto. There are a lot of Esperanto Twitter accounts to follow; those are nice bite-sized chunks to feed on daily. These are things that you can do even if you can't find someone to talk to in Esperanto. And when you do find someone to speak with, you will be better prepared.

Bemused:Yeah. Imagine what a difference it would make if there were whole libraries of books in Esperanto, magazines, radio programs, websites dedicated to helping learners, you tube videos. Oh wait, there are all these things

The quality and/or quantity is poor.

hercxjo:The tools you use are not nearly as important as the time you put into learning Esperanto or any other language.

If the tools are engaging, people will spend more time with them. If the tools are boring, people won't bother without some other incentive.

Alkanadi:
The quality and/or quantity is poor.

I'm sure I'll cringe at the answer, but: what would you consider high-quality?

This is getting quite boring now. You're just repeating the same falsehoods and ignoring the mounting replies concurring with one another. There are not that many engaging language courses for any language. It's not easy to design a course so that it is easy, thorough and engaging. Depending on the level of a learner you can sometimes feel that the materials don't cater to your particular level even in huge languages.

Isn't it obvious to you that reading materials, in the form of novels, textbooks magazines, newspapers; television, film, radio, etc are, by default, going to be in larger quantities for national languages used for daily discourse ? And that, consequently, since none of these countries are using Esperanto to buy groceries or do tax returns or watch the evening news, the demand is not there. Only when the language is 'normalised' by being put into school curricula is that likely to change.

Despite that, to keep on claiming that the resources are scarce/poor is ignorant. Have you read all the well-known Esperanto books? All the good translated literature?

A bad workman blames his tools. End of. Pack it in.

Alkanadi:

hercxjo:The tools you use are not nearly as important as the time you put into learning Esperanto or any other language.

If the tools are engaging, people will spend more time with them. If the tools are boring, people won't bother without some other incentive.

You seem to be techie. Why you don't make videoblog to show what are deficits in detail according you?

Vestitor:Problem these days is, you give some people things to use and they don't know what to do them unless someone draws a picture or makes an instructional video on you tube. It's ridiculous.

As the world progresses, our standards are getting higher.

Bruso:I'm sure I'll cringe at the answer, but: what would you consider high-quality?

Audio and video based rather than text based.

How about you tell me which resource is the best and I will tell you why it is insufficient?

Vestitor:A bad workman blames his tools

A good workman needs good tools.

Alkanadi:

Vestitor:Problem these days is, you give some people things to use and they don't know what to do them unless someone draws a picture or makes an instructional video on you tube. It's ridiculous.

As the world progresses, our standards are getting higher.

Demands and requirements may be increasing, but it doesn't always keep pace with the amount of willing effort.