ceigered:but I felt like adding that it's probably nicer to give k1attack a reason for the opinion and not just give an opinion.

I actually tried to do so by writing "... to a living language". By that I wanted to express that trying to change Esperanto is like trying to change English, French, German, Japanese, or any other language.

darkweasel:

ceigered:but I felt like adding that it's probably nicer to give k1attack a reason for the opinion and not just give an opinion.

I actually tried to do so by writing "... to a living language". By that I wanted to express that trying to change Esperanto is like trying to change English, French, German, Japanese, or any other language.

-_-" Point taken, that didn't actually occur to me. Maybe I should analyse my own ignorance before I start trying to address perceived issues related to empathy... Sorry Darkweasel (and Erinja, and Tommjames, and Horsto etc)

Maybe we seem brusque but I think that this forum is extremely nice and extremely tolerant, especially considering that as a national language forum, we get more than our fair share of beginners who have grand ideas for "fixing" the language.

I agree with most here. Some notes:

No, Esperanto doesn't need to remove the definite article, as it's far too late for anything like that and stability for an IAL is important.

For new or other projects, however, I do prefer an IAL without any articles. While languages like Lithuanian make more use of words like this and that in its place, the article is extremely tricky. I've done translation and proofreading here in Japan and Korea for about a decade now, and even the best translations I proofread always, always have errors with the articles. Many is the time I've proofread a paper that is absolutely perfect except for the articles. The lack of articles is one reason why I like Idiom Neutral.

However, languages like Esperanto and others with either one or two articles are still way, way easier to master than other 'natural' languages so learners have much more leeway to concentrate on getting the articles right. So for me no articles is always better than one or two, but having them is certainly not a deal-breaker.

Also note that Esperanto is much, much more flexible about the use (or non-use) of its one article, than English is with use of its two. This surely counts for something.