PrimeMinisterK:

Zam_franca:
'easy' does not mean "without any efforts to make".
Please read the following article : http://claudepiron.free.fr/articlesenfrancais/stru...

(it's in French, so you will have to use Google translation, sorry)
Esperanto's structures aren't senseless.

Anyway I keep saying this : don't start with the most complicated things. Just do the course, and all will be fine.

I took a look at that article, but will have to go back when I can really focus on it.

And there's a difference between requiring efforts and simply being difficult to grasp. Picking up the very basics requires effort, but it's not hard to understand. Besides, I talked to someone yesterday and they said that to truly become fluent in Esperanto would likely take years of practice. So again, while Esperanto may be easiER than other languages, I wouldn't exactly call it easy.

And LOL, you keep hyping this course, so it better be DAMN GOOD bro! I better pop out of it speaking the King's Esperanto!

It worked for me, so I don't see why it wouldn't work for you.

Here's an interesting quote from the guy that made Filipeto's voice. He is surely right.

Esperanto speakers will often tell you that Esperanto is an easy language. Instead of saying « easy », it would be more fair to say « les difficult ». Learning Esperanto demands efforts and practice like any other language : you can get accustomed to the most important part of the grammar in one afternoon, but it is by using the language that you will acquire automatic reflexes. So don't focus on the word « easy » and don't be discouraged (...).

PrimeMinisterK:
Oh great! Another usage! That's fantastic!

Not sure this one actually makes sense to me at this point, but I'll file it away for later.

You use the accusative to express duration as Nornen said. They give an example

• Hieraŭ mi tri horojn portadis… : the carrying lasted three hours

For all cases when to use the -n ending see a summary in Duolingo.

Metsis:

PrimeMinisterK:
Oh great! Another usage! That's fantastic!

Not sure this one actually makes sense to me at this point, but I'll file it away for later.

You use the accusative to express duration as Nornen said. They give an example

• Hieraŭ mi tri horojn portadis… : the carrying lasted three hours

For all cases when to use the -n ending see a summary in Duolingo.

So this is something you would say as an alternative to "for three hours"?

Can't you use "dum" for this? Like: Hieraŭ mi portadis dum tri horoj.

PrimeMinisterK:
So this is something you would say as an alternative to "for three hours"?

Can't you use "dum" for this? Like: Hieraŭ mi portadis dum tri horoj.

Yes and yes. However it's customary to use the accusative of time in cases like in the one above. By contrast you say
 

• Dum la krizo la agojn de la estraro oni ne kritis, sed poste… : During the crisis the actions of the government were not critized, but afterwards…

I'm not quite sure, why it is so. Perhaps someone can explain.

PrimeMinisterK:Oh great! Another usage! That's fantastic!

Heh. Actually, another tool in your toolbelt, but I do understand the reaction.

Don't get too wound up about it. Upon close examination, the "Accusative of X's" are all essentially the same thing (i.e. turning prepositions into the accusative case), just applied in different areas. It isn't actually as complicated as it sounds.

Also, you're taking mighty big bites here, so it isn't surprising that sometimes you might have difficulty swallowing. I've been speaking Esperanto for fifteen years, and many of the people on the forum have been doing it longer than I have. So we're happy to be firehoses of information, but you may want to step back occasionally and consolidate your learning. We're giving you basic stuff, but we can't help but also give you advanced stuff, because the difference between the two can be fuzzy for old timers. We'll jump down technicality-lined rabbit holes at the drop of a hat.

Most of this stuff really is not that hard, but trying to take it in all at once might be. Pace yourself. A year to fluency isn't too much.

Back to practice sentences:

Yesterday, I went to the supermarket and bought groceries.

At the checkout, I put everything into paper bags and carried them to the parking lot.

Then I put the bags into the boot of the car and drove home.

At the hardware store I bought a pound of 2 inch nails and 2 pounds of 1 1/2 inch nails.

I am not sure why nails are sold by the pound. Why don't they just sell bags with 100 nails?

In the afternoon I watched Netflix for three hours until my head started to hurt.

There isn't much you can do while confined to your home during quarantine; or is there?

I have nothing to do, many books,and way too much time.

How much vodka is too much vodka?

Where is your friend? Where did he go?

I don't know where he came from, where he was staying and where he went.

I was running hither and thither like a headless chicken.

When in trouble or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.

Hold my apple juice.

I couldn't sleep all night long. I fell off my bed and onto the floor like six times.

I bought a 500ml tin of soup, but as it turned out, it only contains 430ml.

Please put the new phtographs on top of the stack, and throw the old ones into the bin.

RiotNrrd:
Also, you're taking mighty big bites here, so it isn't surprising that sometimes you might have difficulty swallowing. I've been speaking Esperanto for fifteen years, and many of the people on the forum have been doing it longer than I have. So we're happy to be firehoses of information, but you may want to step back occasionally and consolidate your learning. We're giving you basic stuff, but we can't help but also give you advanced stuff, because the difference between the two can be fuzzy for old timers. We'll jump down technicality-lined rabbit holes at the drop of a hat.

Most of this stuff really is not that hard, but trying to take it in all at once might be. Pace yourself. A year to fluency isn't too much.

I can't remember if I mentioned it earlier, but this is actually my second time trying to learn Esperanto. The first time I completed a course, realized by the end that I only really understood and remembered about half of it, and also realized that I couldn't really express myself in the language beyond basic thoughts and sentences, and I got discouraged. Frankly, languages don't come naturally to me, but I do want to learn this and so I'm back to try again. I think what scares me the most is the idea that CAN'T do it. That is, that I'll invest the time but the ability just won't be there.

However, a recent experience has given me hope. A little while back I got certified as a personal trainer. In the early chapters of my textbook there are some science chapters. Like languages, science does not really come naturally to me. However, I went through those chapters multiple times and also went out to other resources and studied the same concepts from other sources. Over time, after repeated exposure to the same information, it started to feel more natural and make more sense.

I'm hoping for the same thing here, that by repeated exposure and constant attempts to actually use the language, I'll start to get it. Like, if I were to sit down and write out a full paragraph right now, there'd probably be several errors. Hopefully in a few months many of those kinds of errors will have cleared up. And then, in time, my ability to communicate will be mostly error-free. At least that's the hope.

I do want to try to get to at least a fundamental level of understanding and communication ability relatively quickly though, because I think if I don't I will get discouraged again.

nornen:Back to practice sentences:

Wow, thanks!

All right, I'm going to do these a handful at a time over the next few days.

Let's begin.

nornen:Yesterday, I went to the supermarket and bought groceries.

Hieraŭ, mi iris al la superbazaro kaj aĉetis nutraĵojn.

(Neither of my dictionaries had anything for "groceries" so not sure what the best word is for it.)

nornen:At the checkout, I put everything into paper bags and carried them to the parking lot.

Ĉe la ludmarko, my metis ĉion en sakojn de paperojn kaj portis ilin al la parkejo.

(Not sure the best word for "checkout.")

nornen:Then I put the bags into the boot of the car and drove home.

Tiam mi metis la sakojn en la kofrujon kaj veturigis al hejmo.

nornen:At the hardware store I bought a pound of 2 inch nails and 2 pounds of 1 1/2 inch nails.

I tried to do this one but melted down. Please translate it for me.

nornen:I am not sure why nails are sold by the pound. Why don't they just sell bags with 100 nails?

Mi ne estas certa kial najlojn vendas per la funto. Kial ne vendis nur sakojn kun cent najloj?

When I started, I decided that I needed to practice, and in order to practice I would start a blog.

Now, my blog was not really for public consumption, although it was posted publicly. It would have been painful to read, because it would have been so boring. But I didn't care. That wasn't the point.

I decided that I needed to write posts with a minimum of three sentences. Didn't matter what I talked about, just had to be three sentences long (or longer - three was just the minimum). But they had to be about something. They couldn't just be random practice sentences. Had to be "bloggy", even if they were short. And, since I was making three a magic number, I'd commit to doing three posts a week, minimum, as well.

And so I did that.

The first post was terrible. It was three sentences, and I think they took me around an hour to write. I believe the topic was the color of my house. I made mistakes in that post that I didn't catch for a long time (but eventually did, because I kept going back over them).

The second post was terrible, too. As were many of the following posts. They took way too much time to write, and they weren't very good.

But, what I would do is grind out what I wanted to say, and then I would NOT leave it alone. I would polish that turd until it gleamed. I would make multiple sweeps through the text, looking for errors. Looking for -n's that I missed, or extra -n's that I added. Did all the adjectives agree with their nouns? Are all the clauses introduced properly? Is that really the right word, or would a different one be better? Is this the absolute best Esperanto to express what I'm trying to say? Etc., etc., etc. I could spend multiple hours making sure that my little three sentence pittance conformed to standard proper Esperanto. And I never let up. When I was done with a post, it was as perfect as I could make it.

What happened is that the blog posts got longer, and faster to write, and more and more correct grammatically. By the time I stopped writing regularly (something like 250 posts later), I'd spend an hour and end up with as much pretty high quality text as I could have written in English in an hour.

I took a multi-year break a while back, and my Esperanto has deteriorated a little, and I'm actually just now getting back into it. I can attest, however, that the above method is a good method, and will teach you much just on your own. It is time consuming, but only as much as you want.

You will learn a LOT by correcting your own text, rather than having someone else do it. For most languages you can't do that - they're too complicated. But in Esperanto you can - the rules are laid out and there are no exceptions. But in order to do this, you have to learn the rules. If someone else tells you you've made a mistake, you can just nod and move on, and maybe forget it. If YOU dig out the errors on your own, you will remember them.

RiotNrrd:When I started, I decided that I needed to practice, and in order to practice I would start a blog.

Now, my blog was not really for public consumption, although it was posted publicly. It would have been painful to read, because it would have been so boring. But I didn't care. That wasn't the point.

I decided that I needed to write posts with a minimum of three sentences. Didn't matter what I talked about, just had to be three sentences long (or longer - three was just the minimum). But they had to be about something. They couldn't just be random practice sentences. Had to be "bloggy", even if they were short. And, since I was making three a magic number, I'd commit to doing three posts a week, minimum, as well.

And so I did that.

The first post was terrible. It was three sentences, and I think they took me around an hour to write. I believe the topic was the color of my house. I made mistakes in that post that I didn't catch for a long time (but eventually did, because I kept going back over them).

The second post was terrible, too. As were many of the following posts. They took way too much time to write, and they weren't very good.

But, what I would do is grind out what I wanted to say, and then I would NOT leave it alone. I would polish that turd until it gleamed. I would make multiple sweeps through the text, looking for errors. Looking for -n's that I missed, or extra -n's that I added. Did all the adjectives agree with their nouns? Are all the clauses introduced properly? Is that really the right word, or would a different one be better? Is this the absolute best Esperanto to express what I'm trying to say? Etc., etc., etc. I could spend multiple hours making sure that my little three sentence pittance conformed to standard proper Esperanto. And I never let up. When I was done with a post, it was as perfect as I could make it.

What happened is that the blog posts got longer, and faster to write, and more and more correct grammatically. By the time I stopped writing regularly (something like 250 posts later), I'd spend an hour and end up with as much pretty high quality text as I could have written in English in an hour.

I took a multi-year break a while back, and my Esperanto has deteriorated a little, and I'm actually just now getting back into it. I can attest, however, that the above method is a good method, and will teach you much just on your own. It is time consuming, but only as much as you want.

You will learn a LOT by correcting your own text, rather than having someone else do it. For most languages you can't do that - they're too complicated. But in Esperanto you can - the rules are laid out and there are no exceptions. But in order to do this, you have to learn the rules. If someone else tells you you've made a mistake, you can just nod and move on, and maybe forget it. If YOU dig out the errors on your own, you will remember them.

Funny you mention this story. I actually considered starting a thread on here where I posted some random thoughts each day, and then if someone wanted to be nice enough to correct them then they could.

I think one fear I have of just writing on my own without anyone to correct what I write--unless it's really basic stuff like "Mi iros al la butiko"--is that without someone to point out where I go astray, I will just end up reinforcing bad habits and not realizing that I'm doing anything other than writing in perfect Esperanto. Hell, earlier in this thread where I did my first sentence translation assignment I really felt good about the quality of my work and then it just got ripped apart. I made errors, and wasn't even knowledgeable enough to realize that I made them.

But I like the idea of writing something everyday. The three sentence rule sounds reasonable as well. Maybe I will do something like that.

One thing I have been working on is a little bio, just a paragraph of info about myself. It's nothing too advanced, but even though it's only one paragraph, I have been working on it for weeks. Basically, there is stuff that I am trying to stay and simply don't know how.

But I do feel like each day I pick a little something new up and each day my understanding of the language becomes a little clearer, as I return to the grind of going through my course, drilling flash cards, and talking to you guys.

Why not, here's a few sentences for today:

Ĉi tiu vespero mi spektis filmon de Bong Joon Ho. Li estas kinisto el Sud-Koreujo. La nomo de la filmo estas "Parasite." Ĉu vi spektis ĝin?