Hello Lernu folk. I performed an interesting experiment involving Esperanto this month and really felt like I needed to share it with a group of people with an interest in the language.

So, in my theater arts class, we have something called "Holiday Happy"s that we do every December. It's like a Secret Santa, but we (are supposed to) give our person a small thing every day and then a large gift at the end.

Anyway, I asked my person on the first day if she'd like to learn a new language (Esperanto) throughout the month, and she said, "yes."

So, I gave her a modified copy of Zamenhof's original list of Esperanto words (all of which I looked up on the Lernu dictionary to modernize and changed into a word instead of a stem) and a copy of the sixteen rules of Esperanto grammar as reference material, and I also started writing her some things in Esperanto.

I wrote some poems, and some really short stories, all of which she translated and said she liked while our, host, shall we say (she gave all the presents to everyone throughout the month to keep everything anonymous), was reading the current day's note. I made sure to put footnotes for words that weren't in the original vocabulary packet I gave her so as to not make it too difficult.

I also made her an extra grammar supplement to clarify some of grammar things from the original packet as it was very technical.

Anyway, she seemed to have no trouble translating everything using the materials I gave her, and when I was talking to her after the reveal day, she was commenting on the stories and made references to parts of the stories that she surely must have translated correctly to have been able to bring up as she did.

I remember reading that Zamenhof did something similar where he wrote a friend and gave them vocabulary to write him back and that it was successful too, so I don't feel like I've done something miraculous that no one else has (and I'm sure many others have), but it was still really cool for me to see that someone who (probably) doesn't have the affinity for language that I do was easily able to understand and learn some Esperanto.

One caveat though: my Esperanto isn't that strong, and I had to look a lot of words up, but I figured I was proficient enough to be able to start teaching someone the basics.

Just something I wanted to share with you guys.

Great job! So what are you going to give her at the end of the month~? A trip to Vietnam, maybe?

LyzTyphone:Great job! So what are you going to give her at the end of the month~? A trip to Vietnam, maybe?

Ahaha, no. A vacation would be an amazing gift, but on a student's budget: not going to happen! Actually, since we're out for winter holidays now, I already got her the "end of the month" gift. Through some questions asked in Esperanto, I knew that her favorite color was purple, favorite candy Reese's peanut butter cups, and favorite word tintinnabulation. So I made big peanut butter cups from scratch, gave her a jingle bell to represent tintinnabulation and made it fancy with purple ribbon and tissue paper.

I also included a final note that had an Esperanto story in it too. She seemed pretty excited to receive it.

Interesting story, Freeze.

You might find it fascinating to Google up an account of the 'Ŝlosiloj' which were used in the early days of Esperanto.

These were mini-dictionaries (bilingual and also including some grammar) which could be sent with your letter to someone who didn't know Esperanto.

In the dictionary all compound words were marked to show the the make-up of the word from the roots eg. lern'ej'o.

I once had a little collection of these mini-booklets for various languages - including Albanian, would you believe. I think they existed for almost every European language.

Vortoj de Zamenhof (tradukite el la rusa):

Fine la tiel nomataj sekretaj alfabetoj, kiuj ne postulas, ke la mondo antaŭe ilin akceptu, kaj donas al tute nedediĉita adresato la eblon kompreni ĉion skribitan de vi, se vi nur transdonas al la adresato la ŝlosilon,--alkondukis min al la penso aranĝi ankaŭ la lingvon en la maniero de tia "ŝlosilo", kiu, enhavante en si ne sole la tutan vortaron, sed ankaŭ la tutan gramatikon en la formo de apartaj, tute memstaraj kaj alfabete ordigitaj elementoj, donus la eblon al la tute nedediĉita adresato de kia ajn nacio tuj kompreni vian leteron.

Very nice. I am working through several grammar books and phrase books right now, a little of one, then a little of another so I don't get bored translating sentences about fruit.

Little stories and keys seem fun.
You can use a poem of mine, it has a lot of repeat words in it to make it easy to read.

http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2841656/2/Thief_of_t...
English is here: http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2841656/1/Thief_of_t...