I have been learning Esperanto for a couple of months and find I can read basic passages quite easily.

The problem is that when I read, I'm translating back into English. How do I stop myself from doing this so I can "think in Esperanto"?

Congratulations on your progress. There are a few things you can do (that I know of) that may be of some help. First of all, tell your brain what you want to do. I know that sounds silly but it helps if you keep doing it. before you read anything in esperanto, tell yourself that you're going to read it in esperanto instead of translating it. Then just do it. And when you catch yourself translating instead of reading, don't let yourself get angry or frustrated, just switch back to reading instead of translating. You may find that you translate in short bursts then switch back to the habit of translating. That's normal. It's like running....you may run a bit then need to walk...run a bit...then need to walk...eventually you'll get stronger and you'll be able to run further before needing a rest. Eventually, a marathon is possibile for you. It will be the same. As you keep the goal in mind, and keep practicing...every day...even if just for a little...you'll find the periods of reading will get longer and the "breaks" of translating will get shorter. Then one day you'll be just reading...your mind will be working in Esperanto.

This process will work the same with listening comprehension, speaking it (out loud and to yourself when you are thinking), etc... These are just skills that you'll have to practice until they are second nature to you.

1) practice every day. I cannot emphasize that enough. 15-20 minutes a day will be far more effective than a 3 hour block of study once a week.

2) Vocabulary is a problem, especially at your stage. You're reading along fine in Eo then you encounter a word you don't know, you have to look it up, then boom you've switched back to translating again when you return to the text. When you look up a new word, skip back a couple of sentences and reread them (and make sure you're reading them...when you get to the word you just looked up you'll be reading it in context).

3) read things more than once. You may find on some really challenging Eo pieces you can't read them at all (not fluidly at least) and that you *have* to translate them. That's o.k. too. Do that. Then go back and read it again...and if necessary again and again. Keep at it until you can read the whole thing without translating it (and this works great for easy pieces too)

And practice speaking in Eo...just talk to yourself. When you have enough confidence try to find others to talk to (and/or email) When you can't figure out how to say something you want to say, here is a good place to come ask.

dric:I have been learning Esperanto for a couple of months and find I can read basic passages quite easily.

The problem is that when I read, I'm translating back into English. How do I stop myself from doing this so I can "think in Esperanto"?

Like awake said - congratulations on your progress to date! I don't know that I can add much to what awake said, as the advice given was very good. But I can tell you what I've done along these lines.

I know exactly what you are talking about. I've been studying eo for a little over a year now, and at first I had the same difficulties you talk about. Nowadays I can MOSTLY read and understand without having to translate, but not always.

What I did was to try and "relax my mind" while I'm reading. I would read the words without translating, and then see if I understood. If I did, I would just continue. If I didn't, THEN I would actively translate. And then I'd try and "relax" again and go through the same process with the next sentence. It's hard to describe, I guess. But I would literally try to make my mind as blank as possible prior to reading a sentence and actively NOT try to translate.

In a way, it was kind of like my experience with typing. For years and years I would have to look at my hands while I typed. I just couldn't type any other way. Then, when I was working briefly as a temp, I got an assignment where I had to transfer just gobs of written material into a computer. There was no way for me to type these pages of printed material into the computer AND look at my hands at the same time - I had to type while looking at the printouts. It was very hard at first, and I made lots of mistakes in the beginning. But I had no choice, so I forced myself to do it. After two weeks of typing, I no longer had to look at my hands anymore (and it's now eleven years later and I still never have to look at my hands while I type). But that first two weeks... aaugh. Very hard not to look.

Nowadays, I can pretty much read eo without having to translate. Now and then I run into a sentence which just doesn't click, and then I find that I have to translate it to make sense of it. This most frequently occurs with sentences with a lot of kiuj's and tiuj's - I have some kind of mental block concerning the correlatives that I can't seem to easily get past, and I find myself having to translate them into "which's" and "who's" and so on. But most of the time if I try not to translate I find that I don't really have to.

Anyway, I don't know if this helps or not, but hopefully it does.

Having some conversation partners definitely helps. Somehow the pressure of having to decode and produce Esperanto in real time shifts the brain into a higher gear, and you'll find yourself thinking in Esperanto more quickly than just by reading and writing. I recognize that it's not always easy to find conversation partners.

about vocabulary
search for ReVo (Reta Vortaro), there you can read word's description in esperanto, and understanding the meaning of esperanto words in esperanto should help you to finfine think esperante

ReVo:
http://www.uni-leipzig.de/esperanto/voko/revo/

I have recently captured myself in understanding Esperanto phrases without translation word-by-word... After five days of learning

For me, when I think to myself, I try to do it in Esperanto. Now that I get magazines in Esperanto (Monato and Ondo) and have read some good Esperanto books I find it easier to understand. I still have trouble writing however.

Laŭ mi, kiam ajn mi mem pensas, mi provas pensi Esperante. Mi ricevas revuojn nun, kaj mi legis bonajn Esperantajn librojn, do la kompreno estas pli facila. Tamen la skribo estas malfacila.

Saluton Pastorant!! Mi pensis ke dialogi estus pli malfacila, cxu ne?

Hello
I am quite beginner in esperanto, well, even if I speak not English, it is more easy to require in english..

I want to know, wich language on the WINDOWS XP:s language-selction I have to select foor writing the Esperantos specialletters (I mean such as english "j" foor exempel in word "Journal") With my mother tongue (wich is finnish) alphabets I have to use "jx" combination.

Very difficult and cause confusion

Juippi:
I want to know, wich language on the WINDOWS XP:s language-selction I have to select foor writing the Esperantos specialletters (I mean such as english "j" foor exempel in word "Journal") With my mother tongue (wich is finnish) alphabets I have to use "jx" combination.

Vi povas elŝuti la programaron "Ek" ĉi tie:

http://www.esperanto.mv.ru/Ek/index.html

Ĝi estas perfekte!

You can download the software called Ek here:

http://www.esperanto.mv.ru/Ek/index.html

It's perfect.