Hello,

Do you do anything to promote Esperanto every day, like wearing a special t-shirt or cup or tie or handing over leaflets with everyone you talk with? If so, what it is? How it works?

Please, share your experiences!

Thanks.

I promote the Esperanto in Internet (blogger, myspace, etc.)

I am not really very much into promoting Esperanto, as such. I speak it and I use it but I don't really talk about it in my daily life, unless someone asks me. In that case, I explain briefly what it is and why it was created. I don't really encourage the person to learn, unless they show more interest.

I act similarly with religious matters, as Andrew has already mentioned about himself. I am not really interested in "converting" people to my religion or to my language. I don't really like the feeling of someone pushing me to accept their beliefs, and I try to give others the same consideration. I know how I hate it when missionaries shove a pamphlet in my face or try to "share their beliefs with me". Accordingly, I don't go around talking about how wonderful Esperanto is and how everyone should learn it, or handing out literature about it. But when people ask, I am happy to talk about my experience with it. Most people say "That's cool" and don't ask again.

To me this helps maintain a positive impression about the language. If someone hears of it a second time, hopefully they won't say "Oh yeah, that annoying person at the office is always going on and on about that", but rather, "Oh yeah, I know someone who speaks that, she has done some cool stuff with it"

I agree with what Erinja has expressed.

Based on my own experience, I would not encourage an aggressive approach. Instead of telling people to learn Esperanto, it's best to let them know that one speaks that language, in a somewhat casual way. Also, don't try to push answers to questions they have not made; rather, try to leave them with some curiosity (yes, curiosity killed the cat, but it also made possible the discovery of peniciline).

Today I was travelling by bus, and meanwhile I was reading Kontakto. A woman seating by my side asked me what language was that (her first guess was it was French, who knows why). I told her the language was Esperanto. She asked me where it was spoken, and I told her it was the language of no concrete nation, but it was used internationally instead. I told her just a couple of basic things about the language, but I made it sure to tell : 1) that I use it to communicate with other people, 2) that about 80 % or the words are of Latin origin (something probably appealing to us Spanish speakers), and 3) that the grammar was simple and with no exceptions. I also told her learning Esperanto cost me just about 10 % of the effort I made to learn English.

She turned out to be an internet user, who knew Wikipedia, and I told her that the Esperanto section of Wikipedia has a bit more of 100.000 articles, while the Spanish one has some 400.000. In my opinion this is a good comparison which shows that the importance of Esperanto in the internet is way greater than in the "real" world.

I encouraged her to search for "Esperanto" in Google, which she said she would do. I also gave her the address of a local association, just in case she wanted to know more.

It may well happen that she will forget everything about Esperanto, of course. But it may also happen otherwise. And at least, next time she hears about the language, maybe she will remember having seen a man who was reading a magazine in precisely that language, so it must be a living language after all.

Another strategy may be, when talking about some subject (arts, politics, history, etc.), casually comment something you were told about by a penfriend you have in China, or in Siberia, or in Turkey, etc. Chances are the next question will be: "What language are you corresponding in?"

Bottom line is: don't push answers into people, just try to give them the chance to ask the proper questions.

Regards,

Daniel

I frequently read foreign language books on my commute to work. With Esperanto, I have been asked what language it is perhaps once or twice. No one has seemed especially interested in further information, though. No one has ever asked when it's been French or Italian, I suppose they can recognize those easily. And when it was a "learn Hebrew" textbook, I was asked quite a few times. I suppose a foreign alphabet is quite interesting to people.

That counts only people who ask; I have noticed people "peeking", trying to look at my page without making it obvious, on several occasions. Normally with a foreign alphabet though.