So at least for me, my biggest obstacle as an Esperanto newbie is definitely willing myself to participate in conversations, mostly because my speaking level is somewhere at infant level

I know I shouldn't feel this way, but I get so embarrassed trying to speak Esperanto, because it isn't very good and I know at least 50% of what I say will be corrected. And for that reason, I haven't been practicing my Esperanto as much as I should -- still feel like I'm not progressing with the language, even when I've been going through the learning exercises since Dec '08 or so.

Anyone else feel this way? Any advice to have to offer to similarly situated learners?

As an isolated speaker myself my speaking level is pretty infantile too but fret not - when you do manage to get in a conversation with someone, you'll quickly realise that the human mind is a wonderful thing and even with impartial knowledge of Esperanto you can still make a conversation work.

Advice for conversations in other languages in general:

Don't worry about being worse than the other person - unlike those language tapes and whatnot, where you listen to the person speaking in the language and go "holy poop I could not do that myself!", remember that the other speaker is equally as responsible for understanding in a real life conversation, and thus will generally, after any stumbles, tailor their speech to what they think will be more understandable.

And use your hands and pseudo-sign language if you have to - it's sort of cheating, but it will boost the flow of the conversation as a whole and in the end make your EO conversational skills flow better.

If you don't understand, say you don't understand (if really necessary, default then to a language just to get the initial grasp of what's being said, then go back to EO (unforcedly) and comment about it in that). Don't feel discouraged by this - even as a native English speaker, I can't understand half this bloody language (non-Australian kids, don't use that at home!). Grammar knowledge trumps vocabulary (take for example the following sentence: I gryped my ghossenog with a sundermone, and it was fullostofically unrewked. It makes no practical sense as we're unfamiliar with what ghossenogs and what becoming rewked let alone unrewked actually are, but you still can flow with it).

(that advice is actually not from my EO speaking, where I've had only one short 3 sentence conversation, but from my Indonesian at uni. Essentially though the same thing applies).

(EDIT: If you can grasp the flow of The Jabberwocky, then provided you can recognise EO sounds and grammar features, you'll do fine! )

(Oh yeah, and don't grype ghossenogs with sundermones, it gets messy. An unrewked ghossenog is like a gaffocated trazzeron: conflestably noffling.)

Sure, you won't speak as an esperanto master after some lessons
Else, please, tell us how you did !

We all know this feeling of newbie, in esperanto, like in others subjects in our own lifes (like speaking english).

You have to work and certainly enjoy it ! Don't be impressed by people who want-to-feel-better-than-you and persevere your way.

You seem to have the "eternal beginner" disease. Maybe, you should find some friends around you or in the web to practice.

Why would you not write in the eo-forum ? We wait for you

Saluton Juliet

If it's any comfort, you're by no means unique. I remember my first national congress. We beginners fumbled to find words, stumbled, and even used English (permitted to beginners).

I would suggest going to events designed for beginners that are part of a national congress (and hopefully there are at least some). In the UK there's the Course you can weekend course that the EAB runs, and possibly E-USA has something like this. It might also be possible to arrange practice telephone conversations between willing parties.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

I've formally studied English for 3 years and a half or so and as you can see, I can express myself, because my classes were plenty of conversation. I know people who studied English for 6 years or more and can't say a word because they have never practiced conversation.
Probably I've made some mistake here, but I'm still practicing, think about it

I feel like you can ease yourself into Esperanto speaking. Start out with simply writing in Esperanto; forum postings, e-mail correspondence, etc. You can take as long as you need to compose your message and hunt out your errors. Once you've gained a bit of confidence, you can progress to online chatting, in text form. No one has to hear your accent, you can look up words, etc. Finally, you can practice talking, actually talking. You are already experienced in Esperanto conversation, at least by text, so it gives you a bit of a confidence boost. If you intentionally practice talking with someone who speaks no English whatsoever, then how can you feel shame? This person doesn't speak your language, and you are actually using Esperanto for precisely its intended purpose. Skype is an excellent tool for things like that.

But this is an online-oriented list. The best thing is really to get yourself to an Esperanto event. People are incredibly kind and understanding to beginners, in almost all cases, and also very patient as you hesitate and pause and make false starts and make a lot of errors. If you go to an Esperanto event in your own country, you'll find that most people will be very understanding about having a side conversation with you in English, or explaining important to you in English, so you can be sure they understand.

Relax. (nearly) Every Esperanto speaker has been where you are, and they understand your feelings perfectly. They are thrilled that you have decided to learn Esperanto, and are practicing it! And in most cases they will be kind enough not to laugh at the humorous mistakes.

I had a real mental block about speaking Esperanto when I was a true beginner about twenty years ago (I'm an eterna komencanto since ). I can't say exactly what snapped me out of it, but I'm sure constantly trying to translate phrases I heard around me in English, and trying to think in Esperanto helped. I used to mentally describe what I could see around me in Esperanto. I think a mouthful of Esperanto more easily follows a headful. Plus, nia lingvo isn't something we want to keep to ourselves: every speaker you meet wants you to succeed, wants you to speak it, too.

Laughing at a learner's mistakes should be a corporal crime in my opinion, but occasionally we do give out the odd howler like the time I told the group I was out for a walk on the sea the previous evening. (Cxu vi vere estas la Mesio? Kio???) Laugh with them.

I spoke with some of these people today.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skajpanoj/

It must be the first time in about a dozen years I have spoken an Esperanto word in earnest. They are the most fantastic bunch any learner could hope to meet! Not a word of complaint from them about the stuttering newbie in their midst.

May I also suggest Second Life (Dua Vivo). There are a few Esperanto friendly areas that can be easily found, and it is a good place to lurk and listen as well as to practice simple conversations both typed or spoken.

erinja:the humorous mistakes.

In my opinion beginners rarely make really humorous mistakes. Most mistakes are simply grammatical, so they leave out accusatives or don't accord adjectives and so on. I can remember only one case on the lernu! forums that I really shaked my head about: the expression tre iom.

Don't be offended or nervous if someone corrects you! If someone corrects you, they have a good intention: improving your Esperanto. Even if the correction might be a bit annoying.

Start here at the lernu! forums - participate and ask people to correct your messages (and also say how you could avoid this type of error in the future), and don't fear of being seen as a beginner. If I, today, look at some of my first messages, I also need to laugh about myself.

Word choice errors and misunderstandings can sometimes be very humorous.

A brand-new beginner at our US Esperanto congress this summer made a funny mistake. Another organizer and I were explaining some things to her on the program, which was written only in Esperanto. She pointed to a place on the schedule that showed the talk given by Arika Okrent, the author. It was the second event of the day. She pointed to the schedule block right above Arika's speech. "Oh look," she said. "Ms. Okrent is so enthusiastic about Esperanto that she even chose an Esperanto name! 'Solena Malfermo'."

The other organizer and I restrained ourselves from laughing, and we explained to the beginner that those words aren't a name, they're the label on the previous event in the program, the "Solemn opening" (The 'opening ceremony' to officially open the conference)

----------

Outside the Esperanto context, I was in a Yiddish class once, and one of the students said that she'd lost her uncle. We all said "Oh no!" and started expressing our condolences, and she was looking really confused.

It turned out that she'd actually lost her PEN. Uncle - פעטער (feter), pen - פעדער (feder)