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The New Technology and Esperanto

od sudanglo, 9. februára 2011

Príspevky: 132

Jazyk: English

danielcg (Zobraziť profil) 19. februára 2011 15:00:15

Sure, for you it not only is not an improvement but a dangerous disadvantage. It could throw you down from your present situation where you have to make 0 % effort while non native English speakers must make 100 % of the effort (and even often have to pay native English speakers to learn from them how to make 100 % of the effort). Esperanto would put you in a situation where you and us (non native English speakers) would have to make about 10 % of the effort each. Obviously for us it is an improvement of about 1000 %, but for you it is a disadvantage which leans to infinite. Unless, of course, you are willing to sacrifice an unjust advantage for the sake of ethic.

Regards,

Daniel

Genjix:
Maybe Esperanto isn't that huge of an improvement over English to merit it's success.

Miland (Zobraziť profil) 19. februára 2011 16:16:11

Thinking again about Esperanto in schools, I think that attempts to promote or form Esperanto clubs are more likely to be successful than trying to make it part of the general curriculum, in the absence of a social consensus. It can then be presented as an enrichment of culture, not a replacement for it. This will also emphasize Esperanto's role as a bridge language, not a replacement for national languages. Exchange trips between Esperanto clubs in countries with different national languages might impress observers if the members have reached greater fluency than would be normally expected of young learners of the respective languages.

Genjix (Zobraziť profil) 19. februára 2011 16:32:30

Many foreigners I've spoken to have seemed to have less issue with the 'language problem' than I do. It could be that Esperanto is a solution in search of a problem.

But here I am playing devil's advocate, having paid with my time to learn Esperanto. What a fanciful myth you've invented about my imperial conspiring in order to save time & money. Silly boy.

marcuscf (Zobraziť profil) 19. februára 2011 16:59:17

I've heard Brazilians say things like these:

- Why Esperanto if we already have English?
- English is so much easier than Portuguese!

even from people who suck at English. The fact that they communicate easily in Portuguese and hardly at all in English has little influence when compared to the fact that English classes look more fun than Portuguese classes.

Miland (Zobraziť profil) 19. februára 2011 18:14:21

Genjix:Esperanto is a solution in search of a problem.
The problem was ethnic conflict in Bialystok where Zamenhof grew up.
Genjix:I am playing devil's advocate, having paid with my time to learn Esperanto.
Listening to good renderings of La Espero may help you re-gain enthusiasm. rido.gif

danielcg (Zobraziť profil) 19. februára 2011 18:51:12

Hi Genjix. Silly boy here.

Your profile does not state that you speak Esperanto, so I am not obliged to guess that.

Obviously you did not bring about that imperial conspiracy, but you are benefiting from it and, according to your previous posts, you seem to be pretty happy with that situation. If this is not the case, I will accept your word.

And yes, you are right on something: many foreigenrs seem to peacefully accept that English must be the international language. Blacks used to accept that whites were superior. Women used to accept that men were higher beings too. I wonder if this might be some form of Stockholm syndrome.

Regards,

Daniel

Genjix:Many foreigners I've spoken to have seemed to have less issue with the 'language problem' than I do. It could be that Esperanto is a solution in search of a problem.

But here I am playing devil's advocate, having paid with my time to learn Esperanto. What a fanciful myth you've invented about my imperial conspiring in order to save time & money. Silly boy.

qwertz (Zobraziť profil) 19. februára 2011 18:58:11

erinja:
qwertz:What about Rammstein and their - sorry - scr*p lyrics?
And it doesn't really matter what your personal opinion is, with regard to understanding music. You probably aren't representative of most people, and neither am I. We are talking on an Esperanto forum, after all.
Sorry, we really have different beliefs. Your reasoning is very strange to me. Very strange.

What make you think that I have any motivation to make my personal opinion an representive one? If somebody has that attitude, than that's you! Sorry for that, but "Most American people", "The only truly", "But most people", "We are talking" are all generalisation markers, which - sorry - I simply skip and filter out of reading attention or base for my personal further reasoning.

erinja (Zobraziť profil) 19. februára 2011 19:20:40

It's not a form of Stockholm syndrome, I would say, so much as a mental state that I associate with gambling.

I don't know if there's a special name for it. But when someone starts gambling money and they start to lose, they pour more and more money into it. Psychologically it is hard for them to accept that their money is gone. They think that their luck has to turn around sometime, and they think that when their luck turns, they will win back their money.

Of course this manner of thinking is wrong. They will most likely only push themselves deeper into debt. But I view language learning in a similar way.

If everyone has told you that English is your ticket to financial success, and you have invested a lot of time and money in English, and you still don't speak it well, what do you do? Do you accept that your time and money has been wasted, and try something else? No one wants to admit that they have wasted their time and money. Like a gambler, people are inclined to cling even tighter to the idea that they did the right thing, that they made a wise investment of time and money. These people insist even more strongly that English is the international language, that nothing is better than English. If they were to admit that Esperanto is more effective, it would be harmful to their pride, and they would feel they had wasted their money, like the gambler in debt.

T0dd (Zobraziť profil) 19. februára 2011 21:01:30

erinja:
I don't know if there's a special name for it.
It's called the "sunk cost effect", and it's extremely well documented in cognitive psychology. It's a corollary of the theory of cognitive dissonance.

sudanglo (Zobraziť profil) 19. februára 2011 23:12:28

I suppose Erinaj that the difference between the Rauxmista view point and the Finvenkista is that from a Rauxmista perspective it doesn't make too much difference if there are 20,000 speakers of Esperanto or 200,000.

The Finvenkistoj want more like 50 million - at least 10% of the EU population.

So the question for Finvenkistoj is how can that be achieved, given the way that other countries have embraced English.

Trying to persuade with the traditional lingua franca arguments, probably won't cut it. That's why I think Esperanto has to be re-branded, but that re-branding doesn't change the long-term Finvenkista goal. It's a tactical issue.

Nahor