Повідомлення: 74
Мова: English
sudanglo (Переглянути профіль) 16 лютого 2012 р. 10:34:19
Progress in Esperanto is largely a question of developing a facility in the application of certain consciously apprehended principles - which principles can be grasped, intellectually, fairly quickly.
A week's study (with the right book) is enough to see how the language works.
Thereafter, a lot of it is down to whether you can think quickly enough.
Problems you may have had learning Spanish or Japanese are not relevant.
I stick with my point that there is something a little odd about all this educational superstructure of formal classes, tests and exams, and grading. The early Esperantists would have found this slightly ridiculous.
Look, you can do things in Esperanto you simply can't do in the natural languages.
Stuck for a word? Then build one on the fly, or borrow an international one.
Started your sentence in a way which needs a verb or noun at the point you are at? No need to flounder, Esperanto allows you to create the part of speech you need.
Need to conjugate a verb? No stumbling block - one size fits all (ie learn esti, you have learnt all verbs.)
And so on.
36lima (Переглянути профіль) 16 лютого 2012 р. 13:10:41
sudanglo:I can understand your opinion but, mine is that early Esperantists would have been overjoyed that the language was getting the exposure to new speakers and that their instruction followed the Fundamento (I'm assuming this is the case because I have not attended a course yet).
I stick with my point that there is something a little odd about all this educational superstructure of formal classes, tests and exams, and grading. The early Esperantists would have found this slightly ridiculous.
Of course, I can't speak to the tests, exams, and grading but Lidia Zamenhoff traveled through Europe and America teaching classes on Esperanto according to Wikipedia so, the concept of teaching Esperanto in a formal class doesn't seem to be a big departure from the early days of Esperanto.
Regardless, I think classes are a good idea for some and, perhaps not for others. Everyone has a preferred learning method and I think it's wonderful that those who would like to learn at least some of the language in a classroom have that opportunity - whatever we speculate the opinion of early Esperantists to be
.Bondeziras,
Kelly
erinja (Переглянути профіль) 16 лютого 2012 р. 17:50:41
ludomastro:Maybe it's different when you go to a place with a true immersion environment for a language, relatively early in your learning.sudanglo:I woud have thought that the order of acquistion would be legi, skribi, paroli, aŭde kompreni.You logic seems sound and, in a vacuum, I would be inclined to agree; however, in my own experience, it didn't work that way. In fact, it didn't work that way for any of the people who traveled to Peru with me.
But my "order" for Esperanto was definitely reading, writing, listening, speaking.
I never had a chance to talk to another Esperanto speaker or listen to any Esperanto until more than a year and a half into my studies, during which time I had mostly practiced by reading and writing.
I think it depends a lot on how you learn, versus some kind of natural order.
To me "reading" is the obvious easiest step for anyone learning a language in an alphabet they're familiar with. But I once worked with a guy who grew up outside of Italy, to parents who spoke a certain dialect of Italian. Therefore he spoke good Italian in that dialect. I once showed him a short text in Italian, and he asked me what it said. It seemed amazing to me that he couldn't read this simple text. But I guess it wasn't simple to him, since he'd never learned the Italian rules of spelling. I imagine that he would be able to have a conversation in Italian much more easily than I could, but I'd probably have an easier time reading Italian language instructions for using something.
sudanglo (Переглянути профіль) 16 лютого 2012 р. 20:39:35
darkweasel (Переглянути профіль) 16 лютого 2012 р. 20:57:13
sudanglo:How did D-ro Zamenhof manage to teach himself Esperanto when he had no access to a course-book, nor classes, nor the opportunity to practise the language with other speakers than himself?Excuse me, but whatever the answer to this question is, in my opinion the initiator of an artificial language is a special case. After all, he could design the language in whatever way he wanted, and wasn’t bound to anything existing beforehand.
sudanglo (Переглянути профіль) 16 лютого 2012 р. 21:04:18
36lima (Переглянути профіль) 16 лютого 2012 р. 23:59:34
sudanglo:Yes Dark Weasel, Uncle Zam is a bit of a special case. But it tells us something about the language that he was able to do this.Or perhaps it tells us something about Zamenhoff instead.
After all, there have been many attempts to create a successful constructed language but none have been as successful (or as complete and usable from almost the very beginning) as Esperanto (not that I'm aware of anyway but, I'm sure someone will correct that statement if it's not accurate).
Was the failing that of the other languages or that of their creators?
erinja (Переглянути профіль) 17 лютого 2012 р. 01:14:01
36lima:(or as complete and usable from almost the very beginning) as EsperantoThis is a debatable point, and I suppose it depends on what you call "the very beginning". Zamenhof went through more than ten years of testing and revising his language before he finally published it. Esperanto changed drastically from his first "completed" version (the "lingwe uniwersala" of 1878) to our normative Esperanto, as it was released in 1887.
The moral of the story is that you can't just write a language and release it; you need to go through a substantial period of development before releasing it to the public, to work out the bugs. Many people create their own constructed languages but not many people are willing to spend ten years working on it before releasing it for wider consumption.
sudanglo (Переглянути профіль) 17 лютого 2012 р. 11:55:02
36lima:After all, there have been many attempts to create a successful constructed language but none have been as successful (or as complete and usable from almost the very beginning) as Esperanto (not that I'm aware of anyway but, I'm sure someone will correct that statement if it's not accurate).This does require explanation, and I certainly don't have the answer.
Was the failing that of the other languages or that of their creators?
It might be true that the success of Esperanto stems from the design principles of the language.
On the other hand it might be true that Esperanto was launched at a time when an artificial lingua franca was in tune with the Zeitgeist. And the snowball, once launched, gathered momentum.
Or, it might be that once the wheel had been invented, so to speak, there was no point in re-inventing it.
My own bias would be that Zamenhof so incorporated the essential characteristics of a succesful artificial lingua franca into Esperanto that little was to be gained by some variation which would require starting from scratch, all over again.
darkweasel (Переглянути профіль) 17 лютого 2012 р. 12:36:09
sudanglo:Then why was Esperanto more successful than Volapük?
Or, it might be that once the wheel had been invented, so to speak, there was no point in re-inventing it.