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Good idea to learn Esperanto and another language at the same time?

de 0b5cur1ty, 2011-majo-21

Mesaĝoj: 24

Lingvo: English

0b5cur1ty (Montri la profilon) 2011-majo-21 00:49:56

I'm wondering if it's a good or bad idea to learn Esperanto alongside another language and if anyone has experience of this they can share?

The situation:

I've been learning Esperanto in my spare moments (not plentiful) for the last few months and feel it's going quite well. I've suddenly got the urge to pick up learning Spanish again (a language I briefly started learning a couple of years ago and always intended to go back to) and would like to do this soon, as I want to visit Spain later this year. At the same time, I don't really want to drop Esperanto, but am not sure if it's sensible (and won't be confusing) to do both at the same time -particularly since I'm not yet fluent in Esperanto.

For context: I'm a native English speaker who also speaks fluent Dutch (having lived in the Netherlands for 9 years).

Thanks!

Hispanio (Montri la profilon) 2011-majo-21 00:54:48

Well, you can learn Esperanto during 30 minutes every day. I think that it's enough for you.

The wonderful thing is that Esperanto and Spanish are alike, in words and a bit in pronunciation.

Yes, maybe everyone can learn Esperanto and another language at the same time. 15, 30 or 60 minutes every day with Esperanto is enough.

If you can try it, try it rideto.gif

ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2011-majo-21 02:56:56

I'd just continue doing it in your spare time. I only ever practice esperanto when on this forum, and that's gone pretty well for how little effort I've put into it if I say so myself rido.gif (I'm not particularly good at it, but it's better than nothing!)

0b5cur1ty (Montri la profilon) 2011-majo-21 09:22:45

Thanks for the responses guys. You don't think it might get confusing doing both at the same time then?

Miland (Montri la profilon) 2011-majo-21 11:06:04

0b5cur1ty:You don't think it might get confusing doing both at the same time then?
The thought did occur to me. But if you are really interested in both, why not give it a try, perhaps studying them at different set times during the day (or on different days of the week, or even at different locations), and see what happens?

ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2011-majo-21 12:01:48

I personally found that EO helped my French when I was doing it.

Something else I found though was that there were many times I'd only be able to remember an EO word when I wanted a particular French word, or I'd accidentally push a bit of EO into my French. But, I don't think it was anything that wouldn't have happened without EO either. If I hadn't learnt EO, instead of EO messing up my French, it just would have been English.

So I don't see any major dangers as far as confusion would go. I also think Spanish has a very distinct flavour to it, so I'd assume it would be harder to confuse with Esperanto than Esperanto could be confused with other languages.

0b5cur1ty (Montri la profilon) 2011-majo-21 21:52:28

Interesting responses, thanks.

Googling this sort of thing gives a lot of conflicting advice. I think I'll give it a go...

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2011-majo-21 22:20:29

Since you're learning Spanish primarily for the purpose of tourism, I think that learning Esperanto at the same time would help you with picking up vocabulary and learning grammatical forms that would help you be understood.

If you were learning Spanish for some kind of exam where you'd be penalized for making errors that involved mixing in another language accidentally, I would probably advise against doing Esperanto at the same time. But for the purposes of fun and tourism, I don't think Esperanto would hurt you, and it might even help some, when it comes to being in Spain and recognizing the meaning of Spanish words that you never "officially" learned.

sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2011-majo-22 11:03:58

If you are learning two foreign languages at the same time, and ones that are not too dissimilar I think it is inevitable that you will mix them up from time to time.

As Erinja points out, the issue is how important this is - what are the consequences.

0b5cur1ty (Montri la profilon) 2011-majo-22 18:23:37

Two more interesting responses, thanks.

I guess it's not really important if I mix things up (other than the fact I'd hate doing it!) - it was more the question if that might actually damage the learning.

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