Saluton,

I think there are several potential reasons to learn a language:

1. The learning itself pleases you (might sound bizarre to some pupils) and it helps you to train your brain. In that respect I think Esperanto has an additional advantage, it is very "logical", it has (nearly ?) no exceptions to the rule. This might be a reason, why it's also more attractive for people who are rather analytical (mathematicians ...) and don't have great language skills.

2. To learn about other countries/cultures. In that case, other languages might be better (Spanish, French, Italian, German, Japanese ...), however, since Esperanto is international, you might get a mix of cultures as a "bonus".

3. Non-dicriminating. That's certainly a big advantage for Esperanto. Of course it's easier for Western and maybe Eastern European people (and their emigrants) to learn Esperanto than for somebode who speaks Chinese or Kechua, but unless you invent a language without any roots in existing languages, that will always be the case. Esperanto has at least roots in several languages/language groups and it is very easy to learn for a lot of people and easy to learn for the others.

4. Advantage for your profession. Well, for that there are better alternatives than Esperanto, but once more people speak the language, it might be also very reasonable to learn the language (now) from a professional standpoint.

5. To be able to speak with people who don't speak your mother tongue. OK, here it's a big advantage, if you go to countries e.g. on other continents where English/French/Spanish ... is not spoken frequently. In Germany/Austria I guess there are no people who speak Esperanto but not English. It's still a language of educated people and those speak at least English, maybe also French/Spanish/Italian/Russian.

Of course, the international exchange system for Esperantists is also a good argument to meet people also from other continents/cultures.

Anyway, I guess there are some more reasons to learn a language, at the end if you think about Esperanto, it's also a "gut decision". If you like the idea of an international auxiliary language and the simplicity/logical beauty of a language, Esperanto might be your best bet. Moreover, you don't have to spend so much time to master the language at a reasonable level.

For professional reasons (travelling for business...) some other language(s) might be a better choice.

Gerald

It is difficult to answer this question ... I have known many people who speak Esperanto and french, but I will never asked them if they also spoke English and Spanish.

I have known a few who said they spoke English, and many others who probably speak English because they are English.

Brandon132:Thank you all for the excellent response. I am still a little unsure about learning Esperanto , but I think I will give it a try. I guess that I will give it about 30-45 minutes of daily study. Besides how is it ever going to become an auxiliary language or even become more popular if people refuse to learn it because it is not a main stream language. Thank you all again.

You could really probably learn it quite quickly with only 15 minutes per day!

One place to meet people who can use Esperanto but not English or Spanish is an Universala Kongreso. In Rotterdam I spoke Esperanto with Brazilians, Russians, French people and Japanese who didn't know English (and I don't know Spanish, so that wouldn't have helped).

Jes.

There's an old proverb that says, "Those who speak two languages have two souls." It is true. Only having the ability to express your thoughts in a single language is limiting. I do not consider myself fluent in Esperanto (yet), but I also don't like the word "fluent". It is a relative term which means different things to different people. What I do like is that Esperanto is a very flexible language. It provides a certain freedom to express my thoughts which English doesn't always provide. This is because it allows me to "make up" words using affixes which I can feel fairly certain that other speakers will easily understand. I like this freedom.

perhaps Esperanto won't give you any economic benefits, but it dose give you social, and linguistic benefits. every language you learn gives you a new way of thinking, but esperanto is so flexible that it gives you many ways of thinking. Its fun just to play around with it, i see it as a sort of art (like every language) but esperanto gives people even more freedom of exspersion then most languages. If your a very busy person and have more important things to do, don't learn esperanto yet. but if you have some free time, and would like to flex your brain a little and meet some very interesting people, and join a sort of hidden globe community, then by all means learn esperanto. It can be very rewarding (and i'm just speaking from the mental aspect). btw i'm learning spanish in university now, and found that my knowledge of esperanto has truly helped my understanding of grammar. And instead of saying this grammatical concept is stupid (like what most of my classmates say) my reaction is usually, that's fascinating! (I hated grammar until i started to study esperanto and learned how languages work.)

also i'm a native (though not always fluent) speaker of 2 world languages, english and mandarin, so i thought the benefits of learning esperanto wouldn't be to beneficial, but i now know it was defiantly worth it!

I see you live in the US - in that case, of course most people (Esperantists or not) whom you meet will speak English or Spanish. But in many places, you can certainly find Esperantists who speak neither English nor Spanish. I have met plenty, far more than I can count.

Of course if your goal is simply to maximize the total number of people you can speak with, then your next languages should include Arabic, Hindi, Mandarin, and Russian. But you'll find that takes a little longer than learning Esperanto.

EL_NEBULOSO: In Germany/Austria I guess there are no people who speak Esperanto but not English.

Had I not had a contrary experience I would have been inclined to agree. In the early 1990s I attended a meeting of the Glasgow Esperanto Society in Scotland and a talk was given by a German gentleman who spoke no English. As it happened, a Russian book publisher was present the same evening, who spoke no English either. I went home that evening knowing that Esperanto is far from perfect, but that it definitely works and does the job it's supposed to do.

Akwino