Lynchie:I wish we had something similar in English so it would be easier to remember that!

English actually does have object marking in some cases:

1. Pronouns: I-me, he-him, she-her, we-us, they-them
2. Relative clauses: the person who loves me - the person whom I love (or just: the person I love, while in the first sentence you couldn't leave out who)

So whenever you have doubts about the accusative, think about what you'd do in these two cases in English. Just remember that it's different if you have a preposition (kun mi = "with me") and in "giving" and similar phrases (donu al mi la glason = "give me the glass").

Indeed, on my first English exam ever, the only error I made was forgetting an accusative (we hadn't learned yet that pronouns do take case)!

Lol, well I don't even know what the accusative is, so I would have a problem too I have basically run through the grammar pages, and now I am picking and choosing, slowly learning the language by using it, hopefully not too badly either. Here's hoping.

Lynchie:Lol, well I don't even know what the accusative is, so I would have a problem too

I didn't do so either until I learned this in fourth grade at school, although German has four cases (nominative, genitive, dative and accusative). This doesn't mean I couldn't use language correctly before.

Native speakers have an automated feeling of what's the correct and grammatical way to say things. Every English speaker will immediately notice that you can't say *I love she but you need to say I love her. Your linguistic senses tell you this even though you might never have heard the term "accusative" in your entire life. The challenge when learning a foreign language is to develop such linguistic senses for it.

Have you done a course, Lynchie? Or do you prefer to learn by reading grammar pages and then writing a text, rather than following a specific course?

On the question of 'correctness' versus 'understanding', I think it's a false comparison. Of course it's important to be understood, but speaking correctly is the best way to be understood.

Mistakes are ok and everyone makes mistakes, especially beginners. But it's important to try to speak as correctly as you can, because it helps other people understand you. I can't tell you how many "eternal beginners" I have met, who have spoken the language for decades, but seemingly never bothered to learn much grammar or vocabulary. I suppose that they felt that "so long as I am understood, it doesn't matter if I speak correctly". However, their use of the language is often so poor that it's difficult for me to understand them, even if we have the same native language.

I'm sure you can understand this idea; think of reading instructions for a product you've bought, which were poorly translated from another language. You could say that "so long as you understand, it doesn't matter if the grammar is correct". But think about this in practice -- these poorly written instructions are almost always much harder to follow than instructions written in good English.

I have done some parts of the courses on lernu yes, but I find that most of what I have looked at is very limited to the basics, and so I am attempting to learn the grammar necessary and then try to make myself understood, taking into consideration any guidance that people can offer to me. Having learned English by osmosis more than anything, and with my schooling in English being so poor, it is difficult to know exactly what each constituent part of a sentence is in every case. Also, I notice some people who read what I write in Esperanto make no comment on what I say, whereas others are more forthcoming. To me, both approaches are very welcome

super-griek:
So I would say: speaking well will most certainly help you to be understood, provided that the other person is able to speak well too

In my opinion someone only can understand/aural recognize what s/he still know - means learned before. Everything else is assumption from context what it could be and not understanding from the "received sound".

I'm not sure that I agree on the issue that bad English is easier to understand for someone who doesn't speak well.

When I say "speak well", I mean, speak in a grammatical way. I do not mean using complicated words and complicated verb tenses. I think that native speakers and fluent speakers tend to forget this. Therefore they might not be understood easily by someone who is unfamiliar with the grammar and vocabulary they are using. However, if an experienced speaker of a language notices that the person they're talking to doesn't speak the language well, the experienced speaker should simplify the way they speak (though still in a grammatical way).

I had an experience like this some years ago. A friend of a friend was visiting the US. My friend introduced us and then left the room. I asked the visitor a simple question and she answered me; she had an excellent American accent to her English, so I assumed she spoke fluently. I asked her something in colloquial American English, as if I were talking to a friend, and she had no clue what I was talking about. I had to speak more slowly and clearly, without colloquialisms, and with simpler vocabulary and grammar forms (but still correct grammar, no pidgin English) and she understood perfectly, we had a nice chat.

Usually the more time someone has spent abroad, or with the foreign-born in their own country, the better they are at speaking their language in a way that foreigners will understand it. I tone down my native American accent when I'm abroad. I pronounce words more clearly than is normally done with my accent (for example, clearly differentiating between clothes and close - normally I pronounce them the same), and I try to remain aware that some foreign speakers of English might know British terms for things rather than American terms.

erinja:I'm not sure that I agree on the issue that bad English is easier to understand for someone who doesn't speak well.

When I say "speak well", I mean, speak in a grammatical way. I do not mean using complicated words and complicated verb tenses. I think that native speakers and fluent speakers tend to forget this. Therefore they might not be understood easily by someone who is unfamiliar with the grammar and vocabulary they are using. However, if an experienced speaker of a language notices that the person they're talking to doesn't speak the language well, the experienced speaker should simplify the way they speak (though still in a grammatical way).

I had an experience like this some years ago. A friend of a friend was visiting the US. My friend introduced us and then left the room. I asked the visitor a simple question and she answered me; she had an excellent American accent to her English, so I assumed she spoke fluently. I asked her something in colloquial American English, as if I were talking to a friend, and she had no clue what I was talking about. I had to speak more slowly and clearly, without colloquialisms, and with simpler vocabulary and grammar forms (but still correct grammar, no pidgin English) and she understood perfectly, we had a nice chat.

Usually the more time someone has spent abroad, or with the foreign-born in their own country, the better they are at speaking their language in a way that foreigners will understand it. I tone down my native American accent when I'm abroad. I pronounce words more clearly than is normally done with my accent (for example, clearly differentiating between clothes and close - normally I pronounce them the same), and I try to remain aware that some foreign speakers of English might know British terms for things rather than American terms.

I as a foreigner also had a problem in London that while I could speak fluently enough, sometimes I couldn't understand the answers. Probably I should have spoken more slowly and viss a beet moR* eksent, so that people could recognize that they should talk slowly to me.

(*) read this "R" as a German-like R

I would say that there are as many answers to this question as there are people responding to this thread. Vocabulary is important and knowing how to use vocabulary is equally important. For example, I just came across a usage on a non-English thread that puzzles me. It was "Slu al ĉiuj". Now, just what does 'slu' mean? When someone explains it to me, I'm probably going to feel foolish. But it isn't instantly obvious. So, if you're putting forth the effort to learn Esperanto, leave the slang (if that's what this is) at home. Otherwise, you're not only being unclear but you make the rest of us appear dumb.

Also, something doesn't appear to be working right. I thought that when you registered to use lernu!, your user name, country of residence and number of messages should appear when you initiate a thread. The person who initiated this thread just shows on my computer as a question mark within a rectangle. No user name, no country of residence, no profile. Is there a malfunction somewhere?

"Slu al ĉiuj" means "Hello to all"

It's slang Esperanto