I have some informational questions about the actual use of Esperanto in situations outside school classrooms. I'd appreciate answers from anyone who has information.

1) What Esperanto periodical publications do you read regularly, if any? (Putting up weblinks to descriptions of these publications would be very much appreciated.)

2) What Esperanto language broadcasts do you listen to regularly by radio or by television? (Putting up weblinks to descriptions of these broadcasts would be very much appreciated.)

3) What Esperanto language movies or television series have you watched in the last year? (Putting up weblinks to descriptions of these productions would be very much appreciated.)

4) With how many different human beings do you have face-to-face conversations in Esperanto on a daily basis? (A simple description of who they are, for example, "my spouse," "my co-worker," "a friend in another country whom I telephone daily," etc. would be very interesting.)

5) What are your favorite books published in Esperanto that you have read in the last year? (Putting up weblinks to descriptions of these books would be very much appreciated.)

6) When traveling outside your home country, have you had an Esperanto language conversation with a customs or immigration official, an airline or railroad employee, or a hotel or restaurant employee in the foreign country? (Naming which border station or which transportation company or which place of lodging or dining where you had this conversation would be very helpful to the discussion.)

....

Link to Change.org thread

These questions seem to me to be a bit of a trap. They are designed, it seems, to make Esperanto look useless, rather than being designed out of a genuine desire to learn. I have always felt that this change.org thing is an exercise in futility, and this seems to confirm it.

- A fluent Esperanto speaker may or may not read Esperanto periodicals. I am personally more likely to get news from other countries from friends who live there (Esperanto friends) than from Esperanto periodicals

- There are few Esperanto radio broadcasts and no TV. The person who wrote the question probably knew this and was using it to prove that Esperanto is useless because there is no Esperanto TV. This is why they are asking for weblinks. These questions are not posted out of desire to learn, but out of a desire to prove that Esperanto is not useful. I don't personally listen to Esperanto radio, but I don't listen to radio in any other language either (with the occasional exception of a French online radio feed that has music that I quite enjoy - though I can barely understand anything said).

- Esperanto moves and TV - again, this seems to me to be a trick question. The writer likely knows through a simple Google search that there is no Esperanto TV, and only a couple of movies.

- Face to face Esperanto on a daily basis - this is likely to be nil or nearly nil except for people who have an Esperanto speaking spouse. I won't even mention that a phone conversation is hardly face to face. I am surprised that the writer of the question isn't asking for a weblink to a transcript of these face to face conversations I use Esperanto very frequently online, however. I have very few personal phone conversations in any language,although I do of course make many phone calls for work.

- Books read - again, the request for weblinks seems to indicate that this is a trick more than anything else. Having said that, I can't think of "favorite" books in any language published in the last year. I read a lot but most of it doesn't come close to being a favorite, in any language. I have read Esperanto books in the last year (and also English, Italian, and French books) but would not call any of them favorites.

- The last question also seems intentionally crafty, even more so than the others. The writer likely already knows that it is very unlikely that anyone has spoken with a customs official in Esperanto. It even seems a little snarky to me, as if the writer is pretty sure that you would lie about it, so he or she is trying to force you to prove enough detail that your lie would be easily outed. I have never heard of anyone using Esperanto randomly with a customs official or hotel employee (etc). I did once randomly run into another Esperanto speaker in Malta, and had a very nice conversation about local things to do. It was almost like being instant friends, which doesn't really happen when I run into English speakers abroad (we usually ignore each other). But talking to people in hotels and customs etc isn't really the point of Esperanto. The main point, as things stand now, is to use Esperanto to meet people elsewhere, and those people help you navigate their cities. So sure, I haven't spoken Esperanto with anyone in Poland, for example. But Polish Esperantists have very kindly translated menus, placed orders for me, told me the histories of their cities, translated conversations with railway employees, etc. It was something I couldn't have done very well alone, even with flipping endlessly through a dictionary, using fragmented words to try to get an idea across.

For what it's worth, I speak some level of Italian. I have watched no Italian movies or TV in the past year, I have read a couple of books but they certainly weren't favorites, I read Italian periodicals only on rare occasion, I have face to face conversations in Italian only when I'm in Italy, and I have used Italian with hotel/restaurant/railroad employees only in Italy and Italian-language Switzerland. Italian has helped me meet no new friends abroad, and let's just say, if I wanted to visit Moscow and I wanted to find an Italian speaker to show me around the city and help me out, via Italian, I am pretty sure I would have to pay for this privilege. In Esperanto, it would be no problem, although Esperanto is not anyone's official language, and has far, far fewer speakers than Italian. But the questions weren't asking that, were they? The questions were mainly focused on things that the writer knew beforehand would not have happened to most (or any) Esperanto speakers.

erinja:These questions seem to me to be a bit of a trap. (snippage) CIT]
Hey, Erinja! Go to the site and post this! I agree with every thing you said. I have the same experience with Spanish as you have with Italian.

Erinja has some good points. It might be more productive/worthwhile to give examples of where Esperanto is used. They're readily available if you are looking for them. As an example, I'd be happy to start...

If you ever go to Beijing, you can take a tour of the Forbidden City in Esperanto.

Anybody else have any good ones to share?

once again, very good points Erinja!

And i would have to agree with you that it seems Karl is tying to trap us. I've been reading the posts and he's trying to put us on the defensive. His mind is made up, people like this, you can never convince them otherwise. He expects the impossible and thinks that only what he has to say is important, like when he said, "thank you for your answers, now can everyone else on this form, answer my 10 questions, in english and esperanto?" In other words, he believes that all the 100 or so people on the forms should responded to "his" questions. He's just trying to make esperanto look bad, and waist everyone's time, he just wants everyone's attention. personally i would try to ignore him, because his mind is made up. Let him not learn esperanto, and miss out on everything we have gained in our own life from learning esperanto, its his choice, and he's it looks like he's made it up.

I agree with what Erin said, the second I read that message I had the distinct impression that the poster was heavily biased against Esperanto and was merely finding a way to discredit it without saying so themselves.

I am not going to reply to their points, even though I could for a couple of them. When I travel, I do not wear esperanto flags or pins and I do nothing to make other people around me aware of the fact that I speak Esperanto. I do not address them in Esperanto either. Maybe one of the many flight attendants or airport employees with which I have spoken at least once did know a few words of Esperanto, but I just never asked them about that.

I am curious however about how many of those points can be answered for Latin. Should Latin be removed from school curricula?

mnlg havas tre bonan punkton.

We learn languages in school like Indonesian and German. Only some of the students are actually going to go to those places. And, furthermore, those who would go normally go there with or without compulsory language education, and if they want to learn these languages they will. The small amount of Swedish, German, Italian, I all learnt without school education (well, Italian's an exception, but I was so young at the time that I've forgotten my defacto mother tongue ). All the pronunciation and stuff, I use wiktionary for. If people are really concerned about kids not learning 'useful' languages, then they should start encouraging their children to learn these languages out of their own determination and curiousity. At school, the focus on usefulness shouldn't be looking at 'which countries people can go to afterwards', the focus on usefulness should be 'what ways are we enabling our future generations to communicate easily with others across the globe without molding them into something they might not want to be'.

As you can see I get fired up about this - GRRRR!

ceigered:mnlg havas tre bonan punkton.

If people are really concerned about kids not learning 'useful' languages, then they should start encouraging their children to learn these languages out of their own determination and curiousity.

I couldn't agree with this more. I HATE this concept of a language being "useful" or "not useful". The average American would probably tell you that Lithuanian is not a useful language, but if you happen to be working in Lithuania, you'll find it a darn site more useful than Spanish or Chinese! When I see our high school kids trying to learn French or German as their first attempt at another language, it drives me crazy. We wouldn't try to teach them calculus before they've had algebra, and yet we come against this wall when arguing about teaching Esperanto to middle school students because of it's "usefullness". It just seems silly to me.

We wouldn't try to teach them calculus before they've had algebra, and yet we come against this wall when arguing about teaching Esperanto to middle school students because of it's "usefullness". It just seems silly to me.

I absolutely agree, a good point.

In my opinion, the important aspect of all of this is whether Esperanto will indeed help children learn the fundamental issues of other languages and their often different structure and grammar.

I don't think anyone can argue the fact that Esperanto has a more-sound grammar and this can only help students gain a better understanding of these fundamental issues.

I also think that the logical arrangement of the language will help provide a constant feedback to the student of their own progress - nothing stops them becoming very proficient quickly. Unlike other language where silly irregular rules slow progress and often disuade the student. I experienced this with my own high school studies of Spanish.

My first thought when I saw this post was he was trying to prove Esperanto's irrelevance by its lack of ubiquity...

I was going to post that this is how his post was aimed, and it seemed that his mind was already made up, and that these were the questions that when answered would prove his point, but in doing this he fully misses the entire point and shows a complete lack of understanding of its future and current place in the world.

Uggghhhh!!!