How did you come to Esperanto?
de Uvi, 2009-novembro-19
Mesaĝoj: 55
Lingvo: English
gyrus (Montri la profilon) 2009-novembro-28 18:18:13
Miland:There are lots of forums and sites for conlanging, like: http://conlanger.com/cbb/ and http://www.zompist.com/virtuver.htmRogir:@Miland: I meant Tolkien.That's very interesting, I just found this page which says that Tolkien was interested in inventing languages all his life. That sounds like some of the forumers here!
psilokan (Montri la profilon) 2009-novembro-28 20:29:27
Borgo:I was listening to NPR (for those who don't know, NPR, National Public Radio, is a non-profit news radio show in the US) and they had a piece on Klingon. I thought it was hilarious that there are people who actually speak Klingon; so when I got home, I looked it up on Wikipedia. The Wikipedia page also mentioned other constructed languages but said that Esperanto was by far the most popular. So, I started reading about Esperanto and I really liked the idea of it.For me it was a similar story. In the last couple of weeks I keep hearing a story about a father who only spoke to his child in Klingon for the first 3 years of the child's life. I believe the child rejected the language but that's beside the point.
Someone posted in a comment thread that the father should have taught the child Esperanto instead. Curious as to what it was, I Googled it. I was instantly fascinated and began learning it that day. Having spent 6 years learning French and making no ground, I've always been a bit saddened that I can only speak English. The possibility of adding another language to my "resume" excites me!
RiotNrrd (Montri la profilon) 2009-novembro-28 21:25:24
psilokan:Having spent 6 years learning French and making no ground, I've always been a bit saddened that I can only speak English. The possibility of adding another language to my "resume" excites me!Three years of French and four and a half years of German, here, and I can't read as much as a childrens book in them. But I had no trouble with Esperanto, and easily surpassed the levels I had achieved in the other languages in just a few months.
It's not that it isn't a fair amount of work. It still is. But it's a LOT easier work than learning the others.
If *I* can do it, anyone can. My foreign language skills aren't very good. But Esperanto is easy enough even for me.
Uvi (Montri la profilon) 2009-novembro-29 19:25:43
gyrus:Would any of you consider teaching Esperanto to your children?Miland:There are lots of forums and sites for conlanging, like: http://conlanger.com/cbb/ and http://www.zompist.com/virtuver.htmRogir:@Miland: I meant Tolkien.That's very interesting, I just found this page which says that Tolkien was interested in inventing languages all his life. That sounds like some of the forumers here!
Rogir (Montri la profilon) 2009-novembro-29 20:48:17
erinja (Montri la profilon) 2009-novembro-29 21:19:54
Miland (Montri la profilon) 2009-novembro-30 00:14:22
Uvi:Would any of you consider teaching Esperanto to your children?Hypothetically, I would hope to encourage them to learn the basics, and take them to some Esperanto gatherings. But as they grew up it would be up to them, and I wouldn't want to push it on them at the expense of their first language, which would be English in the UK, and I imagine it would be both French and English in Canada.
Uvi (Montri la profilon) 2009-decembro-04 20:47:27
Hypothetically, I would hope to encourage them to learn the basics, and take them to some Esperanto gatherings. But as they grew up it would be up to them, and I wouldn't want to push it on them at the expense of their first language, which would be English in the UK, and I imagine it would be both French and English in Canada.I'm a second-generation immigrant; my parents came to Canada from El Salvador and raised me in Spanish. I'm in the extremely fortunate position of speaking and writing Spanish, English and French as if they were all my mother tongue. My wife was raised in Armenian, but also wields both official languages with native skill, and we both speak each other's mother tongue with basic ability (although Armenian is quite a piece of tongue by modern language standards: the language shows logic patterns similar to those of Latin and Ancient Greek).
If you could hear us speak to each other, you'd say you just witnessed the Babel tower
In this context, although I love Esperanto with all my dark little heart, it's difficult for me to tell if, when and where I can fit Esperanto into my (future) kids' lives. 
Anyone know someone in a similar hypothetical situation? Would be cool to share some feedback
Sez (Montri la profilon) 2009-decembro-05 04:11:41
A week ago, I hadn't even heard about Esperanto! I was just reading a book of random facts and came across the term, so I googled it and eventually found this website. None of my friends have heard about it either! Maybe that's just Kiwis for you.
Anyway, I'm no stranger to learning a language by myself (I do Latin by correspondence) and I thought it'd be good to learn something a little less dead this time! So here I am.
ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2009-decembro-05 05:09:51
Sez:Maybe that's just Kiwis for you.If it makes you feel better we Australians are the same, at least in SA