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Esperanto and Spanish

door number2, 26 januari 2009

Berichten: 39

Taal: English

ceigered (Profiel tonen) 30 januari 2009 06:12:25

I found out via reading about the obscene amount of articles for Volapük despite the lack of speakers. Or maybe it was through Slovio... I actually can't remember, I just found out about it, then found some thing with Zam the alien explaining the rules then found lernu and then here I am.

As for other alternative theories as to how I found out about Esperanto. I could have done a google search on 'easiest language in the world' out of boredom and found Esperanto by chance. Personally I find Indonesian easier but there are a lack of resources and I'm too lazy to do something I'm not exposed to enough.

Going back further, the reason I got interested in language was a mixture of two things: playing Command and Conquer Red Alert (Soviets were the baddies) and meeting a Russian girl I ended up crushing on. So I decided to learn Russian. The fact that Russian is innately hard is what probably drew me to search for an easier language to begin with.

Senlando (Profiel tonen) 30 januari 2009 07:48:21

I can't remember exactly, but the very first time i heard about Esperanto was many years before i even thought to learn Esperanto.

I was in class (as a homeschooler this consisted of me, my bro and teacher). Think we were probably learning the history of Europe or something. I remember noticing how Europe had so many languages, and I said something concerning the fact that someone should create a simplified easy to learn language out of the various European languages. So Paula (probably the smartest person I know who, inspired my love of languages) said that someone had in fact done just that but unfortunately It just became another language for people to learn. She was going to go into more detail but got distracted or something. I think she did say the words Esperanto, but i can't know for sure, anyhow that was the language she was talking about.

So a few years later while being very frustrated with the English language, and thinking it unfair for the whole world to have to learn such an imperfect & complex tongue, i started searching the internet for alternatives, and read about Esperanto thinking it was an interesting idea. But i think it was finding out that my favorite game at the time "Morowind" had a book written in a code of Esperanto, and wanting to be able to read the book, i started to learn Esperanto from then, stopping a few times, but always coming back to learn more!

btw thanks everyone at Lernu!

ceigered (Profiel tonen) 30 januari 2009 14:19:32

Senlando:So a few years later while being very frustrated with the English language, and thinking it unfair for the whole world to have to learn such an imperfect & complex tongue
I must say without remorse that I WANT them to learn it lango.gif But at the same time, I want them to equally push their own languages. Languages seriously don't get enough credit now days for being useful especially in English speaking countries.

Senlando (Profiel tonen) 30 januari 2009 18:35:57

ceigered:
Senlando:So a few years later while being very frustrated with the English language, and thinking it unfair for the whole world to have to learn such an imperfect & complex tongue
I must say without remorse that I WANT them to learn it lango.gif But at the same time, I want them to equally push their own languages. Languages seriously don't get enough credit now days for being useful especially in English speaking countries.
I would rather English stayed a native language then for it to become an International language (to late i guess). By English not being the international language, English speakers would be more inclined to learn other languages, when English speakers Travel abroad they can speak among there friends without being understood by everyone, and more variety's of English would start to appear (in my opinion). English speakers are never going to be exotic due to the sheer numbers of people who speak it, but everyone has there own languages, why can't we have ours? I'm not saying people should not learn English, but the more people who speak English, the less special English becomes in my opinion. Or maybe it was just my frustration with everyone trying to practices English with me. Although, i should have felt honored by all the attention, when growing up in that environment, it makes you feel a little used. lol. though i guess it can be a good way to meet girls.

vejktoro (Profiel tonen) 30 januari 2009 19:45:52

Well, mom did an Esperanto course once, long before I was born. She`s terrible at languages and it never stuck. As a child, I was listening to some LP dad had that taught Italian. I still remember what I learned. I also remember a little yellow Esperanto book, that had words that kinda looked like Italian.

I asked dad.

He said it was a language to be used by everybody, and that it seemed a pretty good idea.

That was it until decades latter, borded to death while visiting my folks, I saw the same two old yellow books on the shelf.

I had no intention of wasting my time learning a failed, made up language. But skimmed through it just to see how it worked.
I was incredibly impressed with Zamenhof`s effort. I Did some surfing, and within a few weeks I was talking to strangers the world over.

So it was an accident.

Living in a place rich in dialects, I grew up fiercely interested in language and language change. I had attempted to document what I heard. I had even tried to make up my own languages for stories.

So I guess it was only natural that Esperanto impressed me.

robinast (Profiel tonen) 30 januari 2009 21:00:38

More than 25 years ago, an Esperanto textbook was published in Estonian. The idea of a constructed language seemed to be very interesting and we (me and a friend of mine) started to study the language. But... this textbook was so awfully boring and we also did not have any contacts with the other Esperanto users, so we got very bored very quickly (I do not think we got through more that two or three lessons) and found much more interesting things to do.
Then, a bit less than two months ago, this old and boring textbook somehow occurred in my hands again and I decided to look at what the Internet has to say about Esperanto (for some reason, I still was able to recall two words in Esperanto - "tablohorloĝo" and "porko"). So I found the lernu! and actually got very excited. Well, and three days later I wrote my first message in Esperanto. I principally have been interested in language all the time - more or less - and now, I do not even understand how it could happen that I only that late, about 15 years after I started using the Internet, started looking for Esperanto-related topics. The mind block, put on by the first disappointing experience with Esperanto, must have been truly powerful...

Amike,
Harri.

andogigi (Profiel tonen) 2 februari 2009 23:00:59

erinja:
I also felt that Pimsleur taught very few words, and I felt unprepared to deal with most situations, after using it.
I have had the exact opposite experience with Pimsleur Polish. With the help of this course, I was able to order in a restaurant without fear, tell the taxi driver where to go, buy train tickets, etc... Of course, I needed the help of a dictionary, but it taught me a lot of fundamental Polish.

I only took the first course in the language because that is all they offer. I wish Pimsleur would come out with another level.

ceigered (Profiel tonen) 3 februari 2009 06:06:11

andogigi:I have had the exact opposite experience with Pimsleur Polish.
Actually Pimsleur Polish gave me great confidence, even though I never did anything to support it so i forgot it all, it does do wonders depending on the language.

eikored85 (Profiel tonen) 13 februari 2009 08:02:42

ceigered:
andogigi:I have had the exact opposite experience with Pimsleur Polish.
Actually Pimsleur Polish gave me great confidence, even though I never did anything to support it so i forgot it all, it does do wonders depending on the language.
Actually, I find that Pimsleur works well, if you take the time to go through all 3 levels (or in the case of Spanish and German, all 3 plus the "Plus Course" at the end).

I find that Pimsleur is probably among the best audio courses out there. Most others simply give you phrases to repeat without making you actually use the language. I personally love doing Pimsleur because I spend over 2 hours each day going to and from work, and it's a great way to pass time while riding the subway.

That said, be careful about doing too many of the short courses in too short of a period of time. I did Hebrew right after Egyptian Arabic, and I ended up first confusing the two (both are Semitic languages, so not surprising), then a few weeks later, ended up forgetting both!

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