Alkanadi:

spreecamper:What efforts you did to meet Esperanto speakers face-to-face?

I spent about 5 minutes looking to see if they had an Esperanto meetup in my area.

Maybe pasportaservo.org could be useful, too.

Bruso:

Alkanadi:
Shouldn't there by something out there for the non-elitist learners? Remember that 50 percent of people are below average.

You don't think Ana Pana is for non-elitist (do you mean non-elite?) learners?

I meant non-elite. Thanks. Ana Pana is still too hard for people.

People who finished Part 1 - 17,266
People who finished Part 8 - 3,394

14 thousand people started but didn't finish Ana Pana. Can we say that the water is clean when people don't want to drink it?

Vestitor:If this is true, and you have no financial obstacles, why do you still find the need to ask questions here (at the free resource) about elementary Esperanto grammar?

Esperanto only has free resources. I am only drinking the dirty water because there is no other water to drink.

I spent at least 10 thousand dollars trying to learn Arabic. I am prepared to spend the same amount on Esperanto.

I will be happy to pay for a high quality product such as Babel, Rosetta Stone, Pimsluer, Michel Thomas, Assimil, Transparent, Byki, Living Languages, ect.

Alkanadi:

Vestitor:If this is true, and you have no financial obstacles, why do you still find the need to ask questions here (at the free resource) about elementary Esperanto grammar?

Esperanto only has free resources. I am only drinking the dirty water because there is no other water to drink.

I spent at least 10 thousand dollars trying to learn Arabic. I am prepared to spend the same amount on Esperanto.

I will be happy to pay for a high quality product such as Babel, Rosetta Stone, Pimsluer, Michel Thomas, Assimil, Transparent, Byki, Living Languages, ect.

I think the eternal beginners are mostly the ones, that never come to use the language in practice. In your case, Alkanadi, I would suppose the following.

You are here on lernu! now for slightly more than two years and you are really active. According to what I see from you in Esperanto, you are far beyond the point, of just needing suitable resources and tools. If you want to make further progress, you need to come to speak. Speak with people face to face in places where Esperanto is spoken.

So if you are willing to spend money, I'd recommend to spend it on attending Esperanto events like NASK or SES, if you are into lessons, or IJK or JES, if you don't like lessons that much.

I know many eternal beginners who are like here another book, here another exercise. At some point that does no longer help. Then you need to speak.

Coming back to your house analogy: I think your house is built, as far as it can be built. Now you need to move in.

johmue:Speak with people face to face in places where Esperanto is spoken.

I am scared of developing bad habits.

...NASK or SES...

It is a lot of money for a week's worth of education.

Coming back to your house analogy...

This thread is starting to shift focus towards me. Putting me aside, I think that we have a lot eternal beginners because people need to be spoon fed.

Look at the average North American monoglot, rather than the special forces language elite of Nordic Europe, where they grow up speaking 12 languages.

The tools are inadequate. What do you think?

Alkanadi:

This thread is starting to shift focus towards me. Putting me aside, I think that we have a lot eternal beginners because people need to be spoon fed.

Look at the average North American monoglot, rather than the special forces language elite of Nordic Europe, where they grow up speaking 12 languages.

The tools are inadequate. What do you think?

I wouldn't worry about the alleged multilingualism of 'Nordic Europe'. It's not what you may think. There was a time here in the Netherlands when many people spoke German and decent French, but it is rapidly collapsing as people mainly learn English...and not much else. The idea that people in Northern Europe are special polyglots is more mythical than real. It is really becoming a situation of: Native language + English. Those with a language closer to German lean in some capacity toward German.

I'm surprised you say people need to be spoon-fed. I thought you were of the opinion that it wasn't a learner fault, but a systemic one.

If you cast the net wider than Esperanto, I think you'll find that there are eternal beginners in many things.

Vestitor:I'm surprised you say people need to be spoon-fed. I thought you were of the opinion that it wasn't a learner fault, but a systemic one.

The system is failing to spoon feed people, which is what they need.

If you cast the net wider than Esperanto, I think you'll find that there are eternal beginners in many things.

So why do eternal beginners exist in any field? Ego drives us to be the best that we can be. Ego doesn't want us to be mediocre.

Those two ideas seem to me to be in conflict. Do eternal beginners have no ego then? Are they in fact horses needing to be led to water and taught how to drink?

The goalposts here are shifting faster than a pop-up Subbuteo match.

Alkanadi:The tools are inadequate. What do you think?

After a certain point there is no tool but practice. Not excesize but practice. People who don't want to go the step from theory and excesizing to practice will stay eternal beginners. This is true for average Europeans as well as for average American monoglots.

Alkanadi:Ana Pana is still too hard for people.
People who finished Part 1 - 17,266
People who finished Part 8 - 3,394
14 thousand people started but didn't finish Ana Pana. Can we say that the water is clean when people don't want to drink it?

You would need to ask each of those 17 266 persons why they didn't finish that course in order to know if the "water" is the problem. I am one of those 3 394 who finished the course. For me the "water" is ok and that makes me think the problem lies elsewhere.