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Cause of eternal beginners

Alkanadi, 2016年6月19日

讯息: 118

语言: English

Miland (显示个人资料) 2016年6月21日上午10:43:55

Alkanadi:if the water is a small muddy pond full of sewage then the horse will be disappointed.
Is that your opinion of lernu! as a resource for learning Esperanto? If not, why use the metaphor?

Alkanadi (显示个人资料) 2016年6月21日上午11:01:33

Miland:Is that your opinion of lernu! as a resource for learning Esperanto? If not, why use the metaphor?
Does it bother you that Esperanto learners are being equated with a horse, even though they are clearly primates?

No, that is not my opinion. My opinion is that all the Esperanto learning resources put into one category is comparable to a small pond of muddy water (in reference to the metaphor).

The quality and quantity is poor.

erinja (显示个人资料) 2016年6月21日下午1:43:00

Alkanadi:So you would put the onus on the learner?
How can the onus be on anyone but the learner when the learner is the one who needs to put the time and work into learning a skill? Minimally, the learner needs to find the method that works for him or her. My husband tried Duolingo and was bored to tears by it, yet he enjoyed traditional-style textbooks with stories, vocabulary lists, and exercises. I am sure there are plenty of people whose experience is exactly the opposite. I could name at least five methods of learning Esperanto online, even just limiting myself to free courses only, and I'm sure each one of them is suitable for someone and unsuitable for someone else.

Language learning is never ever going to be effortless, so if you are expecting an effortless game from start to finish, that won't be happening. You need to put time into it, regardless, and to make time for it in your day, and to spend enough time looking at different methods that you choose one that is engaging enough for you to stick with it and that fits with your lifestyle (and like I said, that method won't be the same for every single person).

Plenty of people hear "easy language" and they assume learning Esperanto is somehow free of time and effort. Those people are going to be disappointed and it won't be the fault of the learning tool, I don't even care what the tool is. There are no magic wands in Esperanto learning tools, or in any other pursuit that takes some time and practice.

erinja (显示个人资料) 2016年6月21日下午1:46:08

Alkanadi:My opinion is that all the Esperanto learning resources put into one category is comparable to a small pond of muddy water (in reference to the metaphor).

The quality and quantity is poor.
Esperanto is a small language but I have not found its learning resources to be much worse than most large languages, particularly if you are looking for a free course. Some time back I was looking for a free course in French or Spanish and I found the choices to be very limited (and many offered only a couple of free lessons, then you had to pay). I actually think Esperanto has a wonderful number of free resources.

If you are willing to pay a lot of money, of course, it's a different story. You can definitely find lots of language course options for other languages if cost is not a concern.

Vestitor (显示个人资料) 2016年6月21日下午3:54:51

Quite so. Reflecting its share-alike philosophy, there are by far more resources (such as full courses) for free in Esperanto, than there are free courses for other languages.

I taught myself to read and write music when I was 16, using a tiny book called the ABC of Music Theory or maybe The Elements of Music Theory?. Of course it entailed doing the exercises, making mistakes, asking people questions, and lots of lots of practice.

No-one has devised a foolproof method leading to proficiency in something that doesn't involve practice, perseverance, some thinking and some luck. Anyone who says otherwise is either lying or trying to sell you something (often the two converge).

In any case, if perfectibility in this matter was merely a matter of multiplying resources and distributing them, everyone ought to be proficient in so many things...especially Esperanto. And yet so many people aren't!

lagtendisto (显示个人资料) 2016年6月21日下午6:13:48

Alkanadi:The quality and quantity is poor.
What efforts you did to meet Esperanto speakers face-to-face?

Bruso (显示个人资料) 2016年6月21日下午6:53:46

erinja:Some time back I was looking for a free course in French or Spanish and I found the choices to be very limited (and many offered only a couple of free lessons, then you had to pay).
Did you see these?

https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/

I haven't gone through a full course myself, but I've heard good things about them from people I trust. They're not for dilletantes (not that I suspect erinja of dilletantism, but others are reading this), they're for serious learners.
If you are willing to pay a lot of money, of course, it's a different story. You can definitely find lots of language course options for other languages if cost is not a concern.
As for expensive options, I've heard mostly bad about Rosetta Stone.

erinja (显示个人资料) 2016年6月21日下午7:00:46

Yes, I know the FSI courses well. They aren't so interactive, they are designed for classroom learning rather than self study, and many of the documents are old and typewritten and hard to read (I found this especially for the Hebrew course, which was published well before computer word processing became common). You have to really want to learn using a certain method to use them. I have looked at them a little but not found them as helpful as I might have expected. My personal preference is to spend some money (not a lot) for a book rather than to use an online course that doesn't fit my lifestyle that well.

I have also not heard great things about Rosetta Stone. I've used it myself, I had a free trial version from somewhere and I found it pretty boring, I was glad I didn't pay for it.

lagtendisto (显示个人资料) 2016年6月22日上午4:39:23

Alkanadi:No, that is not my opinion. My opinion is that all the Esperanto learning resources put into one category is comparable to a small pond of muddy water (in reference to the metaphor).
I wouldn't see all resources listed at edukado.net like your populist* like choosen metaphor 'small pond of muddy water'.

*emotional provocative

Alkanadi:The quality and quantity is poor.
Some more details, please. What you don't like in detail with which learning material in detail?

Alkanadi (显示个人资料) 2016年6月22日上午7:20:20

erinja:How can the onus be on anyone but the learner when the learner is the one who needs to put the time and work into learning a skill?
What if you had to learn the dialect of an isolated tribal people? It doesn't matter how motivated you are, you will need tools. Just my opinion. There is no magic to learning a language. It is like building a house. You need tools.

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