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| Thread: Esperanto |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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GenieLord
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posted June 07, 2008 06:25 PM |
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Esperanto
I had an English test two days ago, and there was an unseen about the Esperanto language there. The unseen was really interesting (also very easy  ), and "sold" the language pretty well. It just made me to want to learn it.
Esperanto (as most of you probably know) is a language that was made to be the international language. It has no relation to any nation, religion, etc. It's a completely neutral language. It sounds a bit like Spanish, but it's much more simple. The person who made it (Josef Zamenhof) believed that if the language barriers will be gone, it will be easier to achieve peace.
There was also part saying that you can learn Esperanto in 9 hours, and that it's the eaisest language in the world.
So I went to the internet, and found this site. I stated learning, and in 2 hours I learned all the basics. On the day after I started speaking with people and taught my friends on school.
Why to learn Esperanto?
-It contacts you with people from all over the world, regardless of your nation, where do you come from, or what is your religion.
-When you go to other countries, you can be hosted for free on Esperantists' houses. The Esperantists are like one united group.
-Knowing another language is always a good thing.
-More than 15 million people from all over the world know Esperanto. It's useful on most of the modern countries on the world. Not as useful as English but still...
Why is it so easy to learn Esperanto?
-You write exactly what your hear, and there are no exceptionals.
-There are no two letters for one sound. For example, you don't have to think whether to use a "k" or "c", because each letter makes a different sound.
-There are clear and simple laws about everything (for example, all the nouns end with "o", all the adjectives with "a", etc.)
-Instead of having two adjactives for everything, you add "mal" to the beginning of the first, and get the opposite (for example, "facila" means "light" and "malfacila" means "heavy")
-There are only 5 tenses - past, present, future, orders and wishes, and there are no exceptionals.
Want to learn it? Start here.
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Geny
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What if Elvin was female?
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posted June 07, 2008 06:31 PM |
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Good to see they're recycling old tests.
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TheDeath
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with serious business
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posted June 07, 2008 06:32 PM |
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Quote:
It sounds a bit like Spanish, but it's much more simple.
That's why it isn't appealing to me
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Why is it so easy to learn Esperanto?
-You write exactly what your hear, and there are no exceptionals.
Similar in romanian and honestly I don't call it the easiest language in the world.
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-There are no two letters for one sound. For example, you don't have to think whether to use a "k" or "c", because each letter makes a different sound.
Forgive me if I'm wrong but I think it does not use the 'z' or 'y' characters...
I have seen easier languages (in my opinion) but you'll have to be somewhat a geek to make sense out of them.
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mvassilev
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posted June 07, 2008 06:37 PM |
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GenieLord
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posted June 07, 2008 07:28 PM |
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Quote:
Quote:
-There are no two letters for one sound. For example, you don't have to think whether to use a "k" or "c", because each letter makes a different sound.
Forgive me if I'm wrong but I think it does not use the 'z' or 'y' characters...
There is not 'y' but there is 'z'.
For the sound of 'y' in a word like "yogurt" there is the letter 'j'.
There are special letters for the sounds sh, ch, tz, etc.
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I have seen easier languages (in my opinion) but you'll have to be somewhat a geek to make sense out of them.
LOL, this is the easiest language that you can communicate with daily.
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Galev
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Galiv :D
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posted June 07, 2008 07:44 PM |
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You are so negative. I found it interesting. I see good opportunites in this for myself, but might I'm alone with it (well, the two of us with genielord  )
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mvassilev
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posted June 07, 2008 08:00 PM |
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I think that Interlingua is easier to learn if you know English or any language descended from Latin. Esperanto may be easier to learn otherwise.
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GenieLord
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posted June 07, 2008 08:12 PM |
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I think that Interlingua is easier to learn if you know English or any language descended from Latin. Esperanto may be easier to learn otherwise.
I would learn it if more people used it. Much more people speak Esperanto, so it's more useful. Besides, I just like the feeling of "All the Esperantists are brothers and sisters." 
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I see good opportunites in this for myself, but might I'm alone with it (well, the two of us with genielord)
There might be more. For the last two days I have been finding out how many people around me know Esperanto, and I had no idea. We might be surprised and find out that there are other Esperantists here, on HC.
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mvassilev
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posted June 07, 2008 08:24 PM |
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I would learn it if more people used it. Much more people speak Esperanto, so it's more useful.
By that logic, doesn't it make more sense just to encourage more people to learn Chinese?
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GenieLord
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posted June 07, 2008 09:37 PM |
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Quote:
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I would learn it if more people used it. Much more people speak Esperanto, so it's more useful.
By that logic, doesn't it make more sense just to encourage more people to learn Chinese?
That was supposed to be my 5th language, but the Esperanto took its place. So I guess it's number 6. 
I've been delaying it because I haven't found anyone who can teach me. There are very few Chinese people in Israel.
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mvassilev
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posted June 07, 2008 10:14 PM |
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TnT_Addict
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Beautiful Liar
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posted June 07, 2008 10:20 PM |
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DagothGares
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No gods or kings
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posted June 07, 2008 11:25 PM |
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Quote:
I think that Interlingua is easier to learn if you know English or any language descended from Latin. Esperanto may be easier to learn otherwise.
Uhm... English isn't derived from latin... Esperanto is derived from latin... But after my exams, I will try and study esperanto. It reminds me a lot of latin, actually. Except there's no conjunctif or exceptions or difficult auxiliary sentences.
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mvassilev
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posted June 08, 2008 01:02 AM |
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I know it's English is not derived from Latin; that's why I said English or any language derived from Latin.
Esperanto isn't derived from Latin either. It's derived from thoughts in Zamenhof's mind, and the vocabulary is mostly taken from Greek or languages derived from Latin.
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GenieLord
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posted June 08, 2008 07:22 AM |
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FIFTH language? Then what are your others?
TNT was awfully close.
Hebrew, English, Arabic, Russian and Esperanto.
About Russian: I learned how to read and to write in Russian a few years ago, but I never really talked too well, so I stopped trying. Only on the last few months I started speaking it well enough. We'll talk Russian on the next meeting, TNT.
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Esperanto isn't derived from Latin either. It's derived from thoughts in Zamenhof's mind, and the vocabulary is mostly taken from Greek or languages derived from Latin.
Untrue. Zamenhof was born on the border area between Russia and Poland, so it's affected mainly by Polish and Russian. I had an unseen about that 2 days ago, and besides, when I talked to Russian friends of mine in Esperanto, they could understand some words.
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mvassilev
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posted June 08, 2008 07:26 PM |
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Esperanto's grammar is, I'd say, more similar to German, but simpler. Its vocabulary is complex: its root words mainly come from Latin and Greek, and more complex words are made from prefixes and suffixes.
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Adrius
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posted June 08, 2008 09:28 PM |
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Edited by Adrius at 21:37, 08 Jun 2008.
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Hmm... I think I'm going to try this language, I just finished my Latin course some days ago, maybe it'll help
Always fun to learn something new (Ok, nearly always... Math and science isn't fun at all)
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GenieLord
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posted June 09, 2008 12:05 AM |
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Go for it, Adrius.
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Gnoll_Mage
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posted June 09, 2008 12:46 AM |
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And for us nerdy types, there's always lojban.
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Tarnoob
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posted October 26, 2018 07:13 PM |
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I’m sorry if undigging a thread after 10 years is not welcome here. If someone minds it, feel free to remove my post or to order me to do it. I’m curious whether the OP (Genielord) or other esperantists in this thread are still interested in this language and how their study turned out.
Also, I have to admit that Mvassilev was right all the time. Espeanto is more difficult than its advocate often say, and far more difficult than necessary for a rich language. He was deadly right that for many people, depending on the tongues they speak, Esperanto may be overall easier than Interlingua, but for many people Interlingua is far easier than Esperanto. He was also right that Eo is much like German in its structure – i.e. it’s a language with partially fusional inflection & with synthetic derivation, making many long words. I wonder whether Mvassilev in fact read the same sources that I have.
Zamenhof designed, probably unwillingly, a language easy for people like him, i.e. native speakers of Polish who also happen to know French, German and a bit of other languages, like Latin and Greek. But the phonology is unnecessarily difficult for everyone, even for this very narrow group of people. I wonder whether Zamenhof himself pronounced his language correctly, i.e. exactly to the rules that he stated.
The random vocabulary is also rubbish. It could be far easier for many people if it was either consistently Romance (as in Elefen), mainly Romance with other European languages in mind (as in Ido or Interlingua), or consistently pan-European (like Glosa). It would make no harm for people outside of Europe. It would even give them some advantage – because they could use knowledge of such a language to understand partially other European languages and to learn them, or even they could be partially understood by people who don’t speak their conlang. The latter case applies especially to Interlingua, which was designed specifically to be as comprehensible as possible.
I could carry on with a very long story, covering tens of pages, but there are people who did that long before me, like [url=http://jbr.me.uk/ranto/index.html]Justin B. Rye[/url]. After reading this and other materials critical of Esperanto, and learning some basic linguistics, I’m convinced that in the 21st century Esperanto should be treated just like its main predecessor, i.e. Volapük – as a historical curiosity and a monument of the 19th century. The problem with learning Esperanto is that it gives access to people who often don’t realise this linguistic truth, unlike the small number of volapukists, who have a more sensible opinion on their conlang.
In fact I’m working on a website similar to that of JBR, but from a slightly different perspective and in Polish. Warnings against Esperanto and its movement are needed in many languages, but luckily I know Polish. It’s one of the languages such that the warnings in them are probably the most needed ones – as many esperantists come from Eastern Europe, and they in particular tend to overrate Eo.
I’m undigging this because I used to believe that esperantist junk, and I even [url=http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?action=showpoll&TID=28856]repeated it[/url] on this forum in a thread that I opened here. I could carry on debunking some of the things that the OP (Genielord) wrote, but it would only make the tl;dr effect even stronger.
Regards,
Tarnoob.
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