I think the title should say "How long has it taken you to learn Esperanto ".

How long has it taken you to get as far as you have in Esperanto?

You ask a difficult question. There's a mistake that people make. They come to Esperanto thinking it will be easy to learn because they conflate the word easier with the word easy. It's easier to go to the moon than it is to go to mars. However, neither of those tasks could be called easy by any stretch of the imagination.

Esperanto is indeed vastly easier to learn than french or spanish or russian or chinese or whatever. However, It is by no means an easy thing to do. It takes time and hard work (but it has great rewards if you do!). Think of it like this, how easy would it be for you to learn 5,000 new english words? How long would it take?

If you learn esperanto, you not only have to learn thousands of vocabulary words, you have to learn how to put (and understand) them in context. You have to learn structures of grammar (many of which are very different from English). Reading, writing, speaking and listening to (with understanding) esperanto are all skills that can be developed.

I caution you to not expect too much too fast. I also warn you that there may be times when you are confused and frustrated. That's natural...don't give up. Because you will improve (and there are a lot of people here willing to help you!). It's a wonderful language, and you can get to know people all over the world with it. Esperanto can be a lot of fun in many ways.

Anyway, to answer your question let me give you my experience. I've been learning Eo for about a year. After about 3 months I was able to read just about anything in Eo (if I had a dictionary handy). After about 5 months I was able to write/express most any thought I had in my head (Again if I had a dictionary handy). At 6-7 months I was basically fluent in terms of the structure of the language, and only lacked two things, vocabulary and speed. I've been working mostly on vocabulary (flash card computer program) and it's paid off. Now when I read things in Eo I seldom need a dictionary (the few words I don't know I can usually guess from context). I still look up any words I'm not 100% sure about as practice,

The past month or so I've been focusing on developing my listening conversation skills by listening to Eo broadcasts and podcasts on the web (I wish there were more with transcripts available). This has been the most challenging part for me, but I'm making progress. I expect to be almost fully fluent in another 3 or 4 months. That would put it at about 14-15 months of total study.

By way of contrast: I had a comparable amount of German study when I was in college (and a german major girlfriend at the time providing motivation . I'm vastly better at Eo than I ever was at german. You really can learn Eo 5 to 10 times faster than other languages.

I would say the main thing is to not give up...just keep working and playing at it and you'll make progress. Don't give up when you get frustrated (and you will sometimes *smile*) and you'll go far in Esperanto.

Let me ask, what are you doing to learn Eo? what books (if any?) are you using?

Good luck!
Michael

Cwhil:I have wondered, how long dose it take to learn Esperanto? Or, to just learn enough to get by?

I do lessons for Esperanto every day, and I'm hoping I can make great time. But, what is the normal time it takes, how long did it take you to get as far as you are now?

I understand how I must not give up, and with the knowledge of being able to talk to people in mind, I'm not about to quit.

At the moment, I'm using this sites courses to learn my Esperanto. I'm not more than a week old at it, but have made noticable progress. I first started off with the Bildoj kaj demandoj course, but now I've moved onto an easier one, woops, I forgot the name of it. But its that newer course thats been put up on the main page. I have to say this course helps me better understand what I should be saying.

Maybe, when I've spent a few months at these courses, I will start searching for books, but for now I'm sticking Lernu! .

I do understand everything that you said, and I'm glad you pointed it out. And I hope what I've said here answers your question.

I think why I really made this thread was not to know how long it takes, just how long has taken people to get as far as they have, like you have for more then a year, and me for a week.

Althought I only registered yesterday.

Cwhil:I think why I really made this thread was not to know how long it takes, just how long has taken people to get as far as they have, like you have for more then a year, and me for a week.

Althought I only registered yesterday.

It helps if you can find some people to speak Esperanto with. I know how difficult this can be, though. Still, it's worth a try. When I was starting out, it helped me immensely to find *one* person who was kind enough to spend an hour or so a week with me, so I could practice the give-and-take of conversation. It's been years since I've had that kind of experience, and I miss it greatly.

I've been learning it for about a month. I can read almost anything, with still frequent resort to a dictionary (but less frequent than it was). I guess I could say I am no longer a beginner, but not much more than that.

Speaking and writing it takes longer it seems. I've been trying to translate a web page I wrote a while back - it is uphill work. However, I figure it is good medicine for me (as I find translating exercises in courses rather soulless - I want to be able to say what I want to say - not what someone else thinks I should say - if you follow my train of thought).

Having said the above, I think I got further in a week, than I ever did with 5 years of Russian at school. Perhaps that is an exageration - but not much - though to be fair, I am doing this because I want to, I did Russian because it was compulsory (and motivation plays a huge part in learning anything).

Nick

My experience mirrors that of the others. I've been at it a bit over a year, and I can read most everything with only minimal dictionary usage. Writing is much harder.

My eo blog is at http://ttt.usono.net (I just moved it from Blogger to WordPress and found that I couldn't import the old entries, so the ones on there are just from that last week or so.

When I first started writing it, a single paragraph would take me about an hour. Now a comparable paragraph takes me about ten or fifteen minutes. I think that's still too slow, but it's easy for me to get a good feeling for my own progress using the blog as a yardstick. A fourfold increase in writing speed since April (when I actually started the blog) definitely shows me the kind of progress I've been making.

nw2394:
Having said the above, I think I got further in a week, than I ever did with 5 years of Russian at school. Perhaps that is an exageration - but not much - though to be fair, I am doing this because I want to, I did Russian because it was compulsory (and motivation plays a huge part in learning anything).
Nick

I don't think that's an exageration. I'm two weeks into serious study of Esperanto and I already find I read it better than German which I spent almost two years studying.