Al la enhavo
Respondi

The Hardest Thing About Esperanto

de alexbeard, 2009-januaro-16

Mesaĝoj: 24

Lingvo: English

ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2009-januaro-16 10:18:12

I would just recommend reading some esperanto and 'refining as you go'. I unfortunately don't have a paperback dictionary yet so soft reading can be a bit cumbersome on the laptop screen, but if I had a decent setup in my bedroom this would be what I would be doing.

Unfortunately for me, READING esperanto doesn't really help with SPEAKING esperanto, so I will have to listen to a podcast later, but even then all of this will probably come after I've gotten underway with 'teach yourself Swedish'.

Two questions now:
1. Is there any decent publication related to Esperanto in the 'Teach Yourself' series? (the ones with the yellow logo and 'teach yourself' in lower case sans-serif)

2. Is the esperanto accusative derived from the Germanic languages or something? I say this because of the 'n' in 'den Mann' where as other languages don't seem to have this convention in the accusative (or an older accusative)

Cheerio!

Matthieu (Montri la profilon) 2009-januaro-16 10:45:09

ceigered:2. Is the esperanto accusative derived from the Germanic languages or something? I say this because of the 'n' in 'den Mann' where as other languages don't seem to have this convention in the accusative (or an older accusative)
I think it comes from Greek. One of the few things I remember from my Ancient Greek lessons is that the accusative ending is -n.

Miland (Montri la profilon) 2009-januaro-16 11:47:57

alexbeard:how did you learn to add the -n on the end of objects? Is there a trick to it or does it just take a lot of experience?
The honest answer from my point of view is that it is a matter of experience. But that does not mean guesswork. Other posts have stated the essential rules. Be patient, and practise pondering examples in easier texts, like others have suggested. It will come.

Rogir (Montri la profilon) 2009-januaro-16 12:52:13

It doesn't matter where it came from, it's chosen because it's easy to put after words and still pronounce them rapidly.

alexbeard (Montri la profilon) 2009-januaro-16 13:46:36

ceigered:I would just recommend reading some esperanto and 'refining as you go'. I unfortunately don't have a paperback dictionary yet so soft reading can be a bit cumbersome on the laptop screen, but if I had a decent setup in my bedroom this would be what I would be doing.

Unfortunately for me, READING esperanto doesn't really help with SPEAKING esperanto, so I will have to listen to a podcast later, but even then all of this will probably come after I've gotten underway with 'teach yourself Swedish'.

Two questions now:
1. Is there any decent publication related to Esperanto in the 'Teach Yourself' series? (the ones with the yellow logo and 'teach yourself' in lower case sans-serif)

2. Is the esperanto accusative derived from the Germanic languages or something? I say this because of the 'n' in 'den Mann' where as other languages don't seem to have this convention in the accusative (or an older accusative)

Cheerio!
Teach yourself series is ok. But they sure made latin more confusing than it needed to be...they don't really explain stuff well. I really prefer the living languages series

And to erinja, that's a really good idea, i'm going to try that

alexbeard (Montri la profilon) 2009-januaro-16 14:09:01

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2009-januaro-16 20:00:13

danielcg, yes, I like cats. My family has two, and we're about to babysit for my sister's three cats for a month while she goes on an extended business trip. It'll be quite a cat-ful house for a while!

I don't really like the "teach yourself" series that much. They tend to focus lessons on situations. "At the store", "at the airport", etc. I think that's a pretty useless premise with Esperanto, and I don't care for their layout. But for those who like other "Teach Yourself" books, maybe you'd like the Esperanto one.

I much prefer Richardson's "Esperanto: Learning and Using the International Language". But the teaching approach it uses is different than the TY teaching approach, so perhaps some people will find it not to be their style.

alexbeard (Montri la profilon) 2009-januaro-16 20:24:51

Wow. I have been thinking about getting an esperanto book, the book you suggested is expensive it's like $80
Probably good
But still.

Is it like a big text book?

Miland (Montri la profilon) 2009-januaro-16 21:10:30

alexbeard: the book you suggested is expensive it's like $80..
I just looked on the ELNA website and Richardson's textbook costs $15.

Teach Yourself Esperanto is not a 'survival kit' course that tells you how to order a hotel room etc. That's not the approach it uses. But it is not as physically large as Richardson. Richardson has a large reading section (third part), where you can spot n-endings and work out their function as much as you like.

Here is a good website on all sorts of Esperanto books by the late Don Harlow, which assesses both Richardson and TYE.

alexbeard (Montri la profilon) 2009-januaro-16 21:15:56

When i said $80 i was basing it off of what I saw this

Could you point me to a good website where I could buy some esperanto stuff?

Reen al la supro