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Practicality of Esperanto | ||
Tags: Usefulness | Esperanto | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| Bill_Sage667 Groupie United States Joined 5002 days ago 62 posts - 71 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 28 12 September 2010 at 10:20am | IP Logged | |||||
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the title should have been 'is it worth it to postpone the language that you're
learning, and learn Esperanto first and become fluent at it, to significantly reduce the amount of time needed to learn the language you're learning? As you can see, the only language i'm fluent in is English, and right now I'm having difficulty with being fluid with my Polish, memorising the idioms, making my words flow, (although maybe it's not such a bad thing, since I've only been studying it for 4 months). But I was wondering whether learning Esperanto and becoming reasonably fluent in it will help me reduce the amount of time to learn Polish. Another optional question: Does learning Polish significantly reduce amount of time needed to learn Russian (it takes about 5-6 years for a foreigner to become quite fluent in it and be able to tell jokes, and be able to converse the whole day almost like an authentic Russian, have a feel for the language, but how about if he learns and attains native-like fluency in Polish first?) Edited by Bill_Sage667 on 12 September 2010 at 10:22am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5117 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 2 of 28 12 September 2010 at 10:40am | IP Logged | |||||
Esperanto seems to be a hot button issue in this forum. You can find many of arguments in favor or against it in the Why do people hate Esperanto? thread. Some proponents mentioned studies that claim to prove that people who studied Esperanto first, learned another foreign language better than students who didn't study Esperanto first. But not everybody agrees on their findings. Edited by Doitsujin on 12 September 2010 at 10:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6706 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 28 12 September 2010 at 10:40am | IP Logged | |||||
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I believe that each languages somewhat reduces the learning time for the next - directly via shared vocabulary/grammar or indirectly because you know how languages "work". However, I doubt that Esperanto itself is particularly suitable for that (other than maybe that Esperanto may be easy and gives you confidence in having learned a new language).
Similar threads: Using Esperanto to learn other languages? Learn 'Slovio' first as help to Russian? Don't you think it would be wise to start learning Russian now (instead of "via" Polish), if that's the language you're interested in? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Enriquee Triglot Groupie United States esperantofre.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5132 days ago 51 posts - 125 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Esperanto, English | Message 4 of 28 15 September 2010 at 7:58am | IP Logged | |||||
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Have anyone noticed that all the people that post in favor of Esperanto are people that had learned, used, and enjoyed the language, and most of the people that post against Esperanto, don't know the language, have not seen Esperanto working, don't know how Esperanto is used?
Would you accept an opinion about football, basketball, gardening ... from somebody that had never participated in any activity related to that? To be fair, out of many, many opinions against Esperanto, I found only one person that have used Esperanto during many years. But his critics aren't about the merits of the language or the use of the language, but about the behavior of some Esperanto speakers. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Envinyatar Diglot Senior Member Guatemala Joined 5333 days ago 147 posts - 240 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 5 of 28 15 September 2010 at 8:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
Have anyone noticed that all the people that post in favor of Drugs are people that had used, and enjoyed them, and most of the people that post against Drugs have not seen them working, don't know how Drugs are used?
Would you accept an opinion about War from somebody that had never participated in any activity related to that? I hope you can see the fallacies in your argument. 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6267 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 6 of 28 16 September 2010 at 3:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Your response made me chuckle, Envinyatar, but the comparison is not permissible.
Drugs harm their users and impact their ability to think rationally for the time of use - so far, even the most extreme critics of Esperanto on this forum haven't claimed anything similar about Esperanto. War is a moral issue, also uncomparable to Esperanto, plus you'd be hard pressed to find someone who hasn't come into contact with the war or its effects in one way or another, so people are not making a judgement in a vacuum. Basketball or gardening are more comparable, in that they are also hobbies, like Esperanto. But if you don't like that comparison, just substitute any other language... would you trust someone's statements about Italian literature if they never looked into Italian literature? Would you trust someone's statements about Italian parties if they never went to an Italian party? Yet some people in this forum like to make sweeping statements about Esperanto literature, Esperanto meetings, the Esperanto community as a whole etc. without being any more acquainted with it than that, without having done any scientific research, without having experienced it themselves, without even knowing someone who experienced it and told them about it. If someone so wholly ignorant about Italian culture claimed that Italy had no culture, the Italians and fans of Italy in this forum would be quick to correct his assumptions, and the ignorant person would either recognize that they have better information and stop making such ridiculous statements or possibly be banned. Why is it okay for ignorant people to make ridiculous statements about Esperanto, and why are Esperanto speakers encouraged to leave the forum if they want to correct them? 13 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6267 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 8 of 28 16 September 2010 at 3:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
To get back on topic...
Indeed, each language reduces the learning time for the next. However, in most cases it is faster to just learn your target language T instead of learning helpful language H first and then target language T, because learning any language takes time. Let's say Russian normally takes 5 years to learn, and Polish only 4 (numbers taken out of the air). Knowing Polish may reduce your learning time for Russian to only 3 years, but if you go that route, it will take 7 years to learn both languages, as opposed to just 5 years for just Russian. It's basically only worthwhile if you want to learn Polish as well; and even then going for Russian first and Polish afterwards may be similarly effective as going the other way round. Esperanto however can be learned extremely fast (check the Language Log forum for those who studied it as a 6 week challenge, or anyone studying Esperanto really); at the same time it gives you a great base of vocabulary for Romance and Germanic languages and its grammatical structure, coupled with zero exceptions, prepares you for non-European languages even. Because of this, there are dozens of studies showing that learning Esperanto for one year, or even less time than that, can actually save you time on your way to your target language. E. g. 1 year of Esperanto + 2 years of French yields better knowledge of French than simply doing 3 years of French. Even when the other language is Japanese, a positive effect has been measured. Since there are tons of variables when measuring language learning however (e. g. the impossibility of having identical test people, or randomly assigning them to learn language A or B), the studies remain controversial even though there are so many of them and no counter- studies, and it's impossible to prove or disprove this effect with certainty. Edited by Sprachprofi on 16 September 2010 at 3:54pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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