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Why do you use the English forum?

de warcana, 2010-decembro-09

Mesaĝoj: 21

Lingvo: English

warcana (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-09 15:22:27

Hello!

I was wondering why so many of you use thoroughly the English forum, which is eventually almost as big as the esperanto one, instead of directly using the esperanto forum.

It seems so strange to me that I end here much more often reading things in English rather than in any other natural language, including my mother tongue (french).

So I was just wondering. Suposedly, you can choose several anwers in the poll.

Hispanio (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-09 15:40:40

I use both the English forum and the Esperanto forum, but also the Spanish forum.

It depends on the topic and other things.

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-09 16:05:20

I speak Esperanto fluently but I don't read the Esperanto forums at all. I frequent the English forums in order to provide help to the beginners, both in matters regarding the language, and also regarding the website (I'm on lernu's governing team). We have other lernu team members monitoring the Esperanto forums.

I do have to say that occasionally, a frequent poster disappears from this forum, and later I go to an Esperanto forum for some reason, and see that that person has become a regular there. I'm always glad to see that.

I am a bit surprised that some of the other national language forums aren't very active, particularly for the site's other major languages, but I suppose that inactivity breeds inactivity. I certainly encourage our non-native English speakers to become active in their native-language forums, to dispense help and advice to the speakers of their languages.

English is by far the largest language of the site's users, so that would certainly also contribute to this forum's popularity. Around 25% of lernu users use the site in English, which is around the same number as the next three largest languages combined; Spanish (12%), Portuguese (9%) and simplified Chinese (7%) [more detailed statistics url=http://en.lernu.net/pri_lernu/statistiko/resumo.php]here[/url]]

warcana (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-09 16:18:18

Wow! I'm surprised that so many people use lernu in English. I never saw the graphs before.
I'm also very surprised that french is not among the first four languages while it has supposedly more speakers worldwide than spanish or portuguese (at least it's what our french language propaganda pretends) and France is the country with the most hosts in Pasporta Servo...

Do you have any explanation for the overrepresentation of English? is Esperanto more popular in the US and other English-speaking countries than anywhere else, for example?

qwertz (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-09 16:35:18

warcana:
Do you have any explanation for the overrepresentation of English?
In my opinion English serves as kind of bridge language - besides others.

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-09 16:58:31

Esperanto is not strong in the US; it's probably weaker in the US than in most European countries.

But I would explain English's popularity as a lernu language with these reasons:

The English-speaking world is well-connected to the internet, so that certainly helps with an online course. France and Quebec are well-connected to the internet but other French-speaking areas are not well-connected (African countries), or they are small (Switzerland).

There are few quality online alternatives to lernu in English. The French Esperanto Youth have an online course, the Italian youth have an online course, I'm not sure about Germany, but if you speak English, lernu is the only modern course online (except for the downloadable "Kurso de Esperanto")

A lot of people learn English as a second language. If lernu doesn't exist in their native language, they use it in their second language (which may be English).

I'm a registered lernu tutor for English and French. I get a lot of non-native English speakers who choose me as their tutor. I don't recall getting any non-native French speakers.

darkweasel (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-09 17:21:13

We've already discussed this topic a few times here. Personally, I don't care a lot about the language discussions are held in as long as the topic itself is interesting. I rarely start threads on this forum myself anyway but I regularly read the English-, German-, French- and some Esperanto-language boards.

warcana (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-09 18:11:43

Thanks Erinja, I'm fairly convinced ^^
It's true that English is officially the second language of almost everyone (including me)
I just would like to attract your attention on the fact that you may have had non-native french speakers but they can have been calculated among the natives. Especially people from Africa are rarely native french speakers as they are supposed to, but they have french as a second language (for example as a teaching language), before English.
But again, you are right to point out that these populations are not widely connected to the internet.

I also didn't now about the youth courses, I shall search about that later.

geo1963 (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-09 18:28:05

warcana:It's true that English is officially the second language of almost everyone (including me).
English is not the second language of almost everyone and it will never be. Most of the world population do not speak and do not understand English - that is the fact. Accept it. If you don't believe it, come to Poland, China, Japan and try to communicate in English, good luck.

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-09 19:04:32

warcana:I just would like to attract your attention on the fact that you may have had non-native french speakers but they can have been calculated among the natives.
There is a small possibility of that. But I have had few or no French-speaking Africans go through the course with me. Most (if not all) of the Africans I have had were English-speaking. The course asks the student where they live, so I know the country of almost every student (except the few who decide to make up a fake answer). The French speakers that I recall came from France, Switzerland, Quebec, and various overseas territories (the ones I recall with certainty are Reunion and St. Pierre et Miquelon)

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