Hello, I am a newcomer here. I'd like to know where I can use this language and why it was created since we have English and it works good enough.

Mi ne paroli esperanto. - I know this is wrong, but it is the first sentence...

How well English works as a lingua franca in face to face situations is debatable.

The two commonly produced counter arguments against English are:

1. It takes too long to master.
2. Native speakers of English are always in a privileged position.

It is not uncommon for Esperanto speakers who speak several foreign languages to say that the language they feel most at home in (apart from their mother tongue) is Esperanto.

sudanglo:How well English works as a lingua franca in face to face situations is debatable.

The two commonly produced counter arguments against English are:

1. It takes too long to master.
2. Native speakers of English are always in a privileged position.

It is not uncommon for Esperanto speakers who speak several foreign languages to say that the language they feel most at home in (apart from their mother tongue) is Esperanto.

If so, then why do they teach English all over the world as the only and best international language? I asked my English teacher about esperanto and she answered that this was not a language at all, but some old project that did not come out well enough...

If so, then why do they teach English all over the world as the only and best international language?

It's a mystery to me, mate. Clever marketing, perhaps.

sudanglo:

If so, then why do they teach English all over the world as the only and best international language?

It's a mystery to me, mate. Clever marketing, perhaps.

Not a mystery, just a question of political and economical power.

Kirilo81:

sudanglo:

If so, then why do they teach English all over the world as the only and best international language?

It's a mystery to me, mate. Clever marketing, perhaps.

Not a mystery, just a question of political and economical power.

Yes, agreed with Kirilo81.

If a pupil does not pass the English subject in Singapore, Brunei and Malaysia, they cannot go to university and get a good job. Is that fair ? These countries are formal British colonies.

Why not pass the Esperanto ? It is the stupid government thinking English is a world wide language. All of us in these countries are brain-washed into that English is the world language and you can use it every where. Unfortunately, just a few thousands kilometer away from these countries, the Thai, Vietnam etc ASEAN countries do not speak and use English.

i hope someone would set up a esperanto university/college in ASEAN to nutralise these wrong concept.

targanook:If so, then why do they teach English all over the world as the only and best international language?I asked my English teacher about esperanto and she answered that this was not a language at all, but some old project that did not come out well enough...

I met your teacher once and she said the same thing to me. Esperanto is not a national language, but it is indeed a language. I think that small difference mixes people up sometimes.

As for why people study English rather than la bela lingvo, first of all, some people study both. But otherwise, it's all about money. People who learn (or teach!) English as a foreign language do it for the money, for the good of the economy, for their career, one of those reasons. People learn Esperanto because they just want to talk to people from other countries and meet them half way, language wise. If it became more widespread, it would also be financially beneficial to speak Esperanto, too.

Marketing is important too, as sudanglo mentioned. This character was the mascot of Japan's largest English school chain, nicknamed 'the McDonald's of English schools', before it went bust under shady circumstances a few years ago.

Just kidding, I never met your teacher. Say hi to her though.

EoMy:If a pupil does not pass the English subject in Singapore, Brunei and Malaysia, they cannot go to university and get a good job. Is that fair ?

The same is in my own country. Each child has to learn this language for 15 years and in the end look at me - my English is poor and broken. I can't say what I feel but only what I can. It is not just.

targanook:
If so, then why do they teach English all over the world as the only and best international language? I asked my English teacher about esperanto and she answered that this was not a language at all, but some old project that did not come out well enough...

They teach English all over the world because the economic and political influence of English-speaking countries has made it advantageous for people to learn it. The name for this phenomenon is cultural imperialism. The British Empire brought English to many parts of the world, such as India and Singapore, where it might not otherwise have been a major language. Then the US became a major economic force, adding more momentum to the spread of English. A by-product of all this is the global spread of pop culture, in the form of music, movies, etc, in English.

It's not because there's something especially favorable about the English language itself. English has horrendously irregular spelling and pronunciation, with a large number of distinct vowel sounds that make it very difficult to master. Although the basic grammar of English isn't too complicated, it is absolutely loaded with highly idiomatic expressions, phrasal verbs, and similar challenges.

As for your English teacher's comment about Esperanto, it's simply false. Esperanto "turned out" just fine, and has been used for every conceivable linguistic purpose by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people for over a century.

The national language of Singapore, Brunei and Malaysia is Malay but English is more important than the national language.

Someone told me that there is an article saying that a country which insist in using English as a major language is using English as a tool to control the people and making their children better off than the lower class people. I did not know whether this good analytical article is in Esperanto or other languages. I could not find it, please help me if you can.

Learning English takes a longer time and the lower class people cannot afford that and thus this class of people will forever be the poor and uneducated ones.This class of people will forever be the supply of labour for the ruling class.

I think it is right.

If all countries teach Esperanto, i think a kid with less education in school would one day later be someone if he/she can read and write Esperanto.

This is the hotel page in Rotterdam which has the Esperanto page

Hotel Van Walsum