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Adding Esperanto as a "side dish"?

  Tags: Esperanto
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto Post Reply
23 messages over 3 pages: 13  Next >>
Cabaire
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5359 days ago

725 posts - 1352 votes 

 
 Message 9 of 23
19 March 2012 at 8:07pm | IP Logged 
Quote:
I recommend considering toki pona as well.


The problem with Toki pona is, that the "dish" is too small. Can you name me at least ten books which are writte in it? No, the language is not made for that purpose, it is for conversation.
I would never learn a language without a literary corpus, because I am not very interested in talking to other people, but want only texts to study.
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Michael K.
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5489 days ago

568 posts - 886 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Esperanto

 
 Message 10 of 23
20 March 2012 at 12:28pm | IP Logged 
My point about writing a book or giving a lecture was that if you want to be highly functional in Esperanto, it's silly to just call it "half a language." I understand OP's original statement was about difficulty, but any language you study is as difficult as you make it, depending how good you want to be at the language. Depending on the language, survival skills could be very useful (like knowing basic Spanish in the Southwestern US), but that level would probably be useless in Esperanto (after all, in which city in the world can you ask someone for directions in Esperanto and be reasonably certain they'd understand you?).

There are orators and writers in Esperanto. I'm still a komencanto, so I can't comment on how good they are, but most of them probably willingly learned Esperanto as a second language (they probably aren't native speakers).

What I'm trying to say is that whatever any other language can do, I'm sure Esperanto can do just as well. It annoys me a little when people say otherwise.

I'm interested in other conlangs like toki pona or Lojban, but the real appeal from those languages seems to be using them for chatting online. To me, that just doesn't seem like a good enough reason to learn them. As more people learn them, the body of literature and opportunities to use them for other purposes other than chatting online will increase too.


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manish
Triglot
Groupie
Romania
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88 posts - 136 votes 
Speaks: Romanian*, English, German
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 Message 11 of 23
20 March 2012 at 1:40pm | IP Logged 
Esperanto is fun and once you start learning it becomes really addictive... I won't call it "half a language" since I don't know enough about it, but what bothers me is that it is a constructed language... No offense to those who love them, but I'm reluctant to learn constructed languages - they just don't appeal to me in the same way that natural languages do.
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Ari
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Norway
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 Message 12 of 23
20 March 2012 at 2:13pm | IP Logged 
Michael K. wrote:
I'm interested in other conlangs like toki pona or Lojban, but the real appeal from those languages seems to be using them for chatting online. To me, that just doesn't seem like a good enough reason to learn them.

I don't think that's the "real appeal" of either Lojban or Toki Pona. Both these languages are engineered with a specific purpose in mind. Their main selling point is restructuring your thoughts and forcing you to express yourself in ways that don't come as easily in natural languages, thus giving you a whole new way of looking at the world (a logical way, in the case of Lojban, and a simple way without self-deception, in the case of Toki Pona). They're to some extent more "private". Of course they're used for communication, but I don't think it's their main purpose, even though part of Lojban's purpose is, if I recall correctly, to enable easier communication between humans and computers.
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Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6199 days ago

4474 posts - 6726 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 13 of 23
20 March 2012 at 3:08pm | IP Logged 
Michael K. wrote:
My point about writing a book or giving a lecture was that if you want to be highly functional in Esperanto, it's silly to just call it "half a language." I understand OP's original statement was about difficulty, but any language you study is as difficult as you make it, depending how good you want to be at the language. Depending on the language, survival skills could be very useful (like knowing basic Spanish in the Southwestern US), but that level would probably be useless in Esperanto (after all, in which city in the world can you ask someone for directions in Esperanto and be reasonably certain they'd understand you?).

There are orators and writers in Esperanto. I'm still a komencanto, so I can't comment on how good they are, but most of them probably willingly learned Esperanto as a second language (they probably aren't native speakers).

What I'm trying to say is that whatever any other language can do, I'm sure Esperanto can do just as well. It annoys me a little when people say otherwise.

I'm interested in other conlangs like toki pona or Lojban, but the real appeal from those languages seems to be using them for chatting online. To me, that just doesn't seem like a good enough reason to learn them. As more people learn them, the body of literature and opportunities to use them for other purposes other than chatting online will increase too.



In terms of expressiveness, quality of literature, and so forth, Esperanto is not "half a language".

In terms of difficulty to learn in to any given level, it is, in the same sense that French is for a speaker of Spanish.

Every Esperanto writer speaker of note is a non-native speaker. Some of them are very, very good.

5 persons have voted this message useful



Michael K.
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5489 days ago

568 posts - 886 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Esperanto

 
 Message 14 of 23
20 March 2012 at 5:13pm | IP Logged 
@Ari: Thanks. I didn't really know how people use Lojban and toki pona, but I can see how using it to think in new ways would be appealing.

@manish: Esperanto is the closest conlang to being a natural language. It has just about everything natural languages have (including native speakers), so it's really a natural language in every way except that someone purposefully designed it instead of evolving naturally and be tinkered with by grammarians over a period of time. Some conlangs are more like incomplete projects than languages, so I can see why some people wouldn't want to learn them. Also, no other conlang has the community and literature that Esperanto has, so if you want to get into conlangs and maybe make your own someday (like I do), Esperanto is the best way to get started.   
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Sprachprofi
Nonaglot
Senior Member
Germany
learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
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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 15 of 23
20 March 2012 at 6:50pm | IP Logged 
Michael K. wrote:
@manish: Esperanto is the closest conlang to being a natural language.
It has just about everything natural languages have (including native speakers), so it's
really a natural language in every way except that someone purposefully designed it
instead of evolving naturally and be tinkered with by grammarians over a period of time.
Some conlangs are more like incomplete projects than languages, so I can see why some
people wouldn't want to learn them. Also, no other conlang has the community and
literature that Esperanto has, so if you want to get into conlangs and maybe make your
own someday (like I do), Esperanto is the best way to get started.   


Well, depends if you count Indonesian and Modern Hebrew, these were also largely designed
rather than evolving naturally.
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manish
Triglot
Groupie
Romania
Joined 5306 days ago

88 posts - 136 votes 
Speaks: Romanian*, English, German
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 16 of 23
20 March 2012 at 7:57pm | IP Logged 
Sprachprofi wrote:
Well, depends if you count Indonesian and Modern Hebrew, these were also largely designed
rather than evolving naturally.


Indonesian is the standard form of a dialect, how exactly is it "designed"?


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