đ§ Martin
A few years ago I decided to learn Esperanto (the constructed language). I now spend anywhere from a few hours to a few days per week speaking it with friends from around the world. AMA :) (or just shake your head disapprovingly)
đ Matt Harwood
You've all inspired me to give Esperanto a go - thank you for this! I'm very excited!
đ§ Martin
That's awesome! Give me a shout if I can help :) Here are my Esperanto projects, by the way, some of which you may find helpful (like the speech robot): esperanto.martinru...
Nick S.
I got about halfway through Duolingo after casually working on it for a few months. When I stopped I found myself regularly thinking in eo sentence fragments, to a level I never have while learning German. Time to pick this back up ;)
đ§ Martin
Very cool. If you decide to jump back in and have any questions, mi felicxe respondus iujn ajn demandojn viajn :)
đĒ Danilo
What languages do you speak? Have you considered learning some other constructed language at the time? Maybe lojban?
đ§ Martin
I speak some German, and I'm *slowly* learning Hebrew. Lojban never interested me much, but I'd love to learn a bit of Volapuk. I've dabbled in Toki Pona, which I'd like to put some more time into as I have friends who can speak it well. Toki Pona is considered the "sekreta lingvo inter Esperantistoj" (secret language for Esperanto speakers), since Esperanto quickly loses that attribute during Esperanto gatherings :) How about you?
đĒ Danilo
Hadn't heard of volapuk before! Nice. I speak portuguese and started learning a bit of german on duolingo a while ago; I dropped studying it(for now) so I only know a phrase or two. Still, I find it so cool to see how similar it is to english; I didn't experience/don't remember/experienced in a different way when learning english!
đ§ Martin
Awesome! I find the links between languages fascinating, even more so when no obvious links appear to exist, such as in the case of Basque. I initially found German quite a challenge grammatically, but it became a bit easier once I had the confidence and practice from speaking Esperanto.
đ LÊo
That is super cool. Have you ever found Esperanto being spoken anywhere randomly? Like go to a coffee shop and find a group of people speaking amongst themselves? Have you ever used it to speak to someone that does not speak English? In my experience, being a non-native speaker of English, I catch myself saying things that sound weird in English because I'm translating directly from my first language. Have you ever noticed that in Esperanto?
đ§ Martin
I was talking to others on a train in the UK, and a woman on the opposite table interrupted to ask if we were speaking Esperanto. That was surprising! Aside from that, I've only ever bumped into others during large events where the local town is flooded with 200+ speakers, so not so random. I have friends who simply don't speak English, and others who speak it badly... it's awesome to chat on a completely equal footing. RE anglicisms: when first learning, but very rarely now.
đĨ Gluco
How long did it take you until you were able to speak about everyday experiences? Any particular entry book you can recommend?
đ§ Martin
It's easy to progress quickly in the language due to its regularity and how well it was designed to reinforce itself grammatically. After around 6 months I was able to have a good level of conversation. After 1 year of study and use I felt pretty close to fluent, and attended classes at CEFR C1. The course at lernu.net/eo/kurso... is a good start, as well as the Duolingo content. My friend released Teach Yourself Esperanto last year, and that's a great book!
đ§ŋ Andrea
Where do you find people to speak out with? How did you learn?
đ§ Martin
It has a really active community of speakers, especially during this COVID period. During my time learning, I also attended some in-person events (some with over 200 people) which run for a week, so I made some good friends that way. There's now pretty much a full calendar of online events from all over the world (eventaservo.org). I learned via various books, events, and through plenty of practice.
đ§ŋ Andrea
Why did you decide to learn Esperanto and not Spanish? They seem very similar
đ˛ Jamie
Pretty different set of (linguistic) considerations between learning a natural and constructed language IMO. And cultural too, I imagine!
đ§ Martin
Absolutely. Linguistically speaking it's far more regular. Phonologically it shares mostly the same sound inventory as a typical European language. Morphologically it's very interesting as its regular and well-designed system for derivation removes a lot of pain from learning vocabulary. In fact, I've lost count of the number of times I've heard a word for the first time and was easily able to determine its meaning.
đ§ŋ Andrea
Thanks for all the information! If you had asked me before what Esperanto was before this thread I would have probably said it was some dialect spoken somewhere in Spain :)
đ§ Martin
Nedankinde (you're welcome)! It's a big interest of mine, so I'm always more than happy to talk about it :)
đ§ Martin
The main reason was that the idea of a constructed language that carries no national identity with it was deeply interesting to me. Then I realised how little effort it requires to learn, vs. any other national language, and I was totally sucked in. I like to say it's almost a "programming language for the mouth" because of how regular and well-formed it (mostly) is. I wrote a bit more about it here, if you're interested: martinrue.com/zame...
đ§ Martin
I do. I spent a bit of time (2 years) working in that space. "Monero" is the Esperanto word for "coin", composed of "mono" (money) + "-er" (piece). This highlights a nice feature of Esperanto, in that "-er" can be applied anywhere it makes logical sense, e.g.: negxero (snowflake), pluvero (raindrop), panero (breadcrumb), fajrero (spark). I'm not sure all that many people in the Monero community really speak Esperanto, however. Or rather, I didn't mean many.