🧉 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)

🧿 Andrea Where do you find people to speak out with? How did you learn?

🧉 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.

🧿 Andrea Why did you decide to learn Esperanto and not Spanish? They seem very similar

🧉 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...

🎲 Jamie Pretty different set of (linguistic) considerations between learning a natural and constructed language IMO. And cultural too, I imagine!