what that langauages do you prefer how help language?
I prefer English for sure. I learn language for communication and have more job and education opportunities. Esperanto capability don’t give me that. English is the best for me right now.
In some occasion in the future, I might study Esperanto for fun.
English is for bussines, esperanto is for friendship, as said a esperantist who I met with him.
However, english is very important in order to communicate in the world. It’s practical, effective and it masters the communication, the global interaction. The esperanto’s goal in not to replace ethnical languages like english. Its main goal is to be an international auxiliary language. We like or not, english is a reality, but esperanto is a project. A very beautiful and nice project, but a project. Perhaps the dreams, projects became reality someday and we could communicate and speak in a neutral, global language, where there wasn’t a mastering language for economic, political or culture reasons. Fighting against that is the main reason there esperanto.
I think there isn’t really a choice between the two. I doubt many people can’t decide whether to learn English or Esperanto! English is the obvious choice.
I think the main point of Esperanto is just to exist - to show that it is possible to design a language which is simple, easy to learn, and yet functional. I think that in the future, we will need to have such a language. It may not be Esperanto - it may be some simplified “internationalized” form of English, but we will need to have that kind of language for international communication. It is not realistic to expect everyone to learn English as native speakers speak it with all its nuances and quirks.
The other advantage is that learning Esperanto is a way to make penpals all around the world with whom you can communicate on a level playing field (neither of you has native speaker advantage).
I think Esperanto is interesting, and I think learning it is worthwhile, but there’s just no comparison between English and Esperanto.
esperanto it´s real, edvo, do you realy know esperanto?
I know that esperanto is real, but it is not a economic, political o social reality. So I said that is a project. For example, in Spain, the majority of society is not heard of esperanto. Esperanto is a reality, but a minority reality, a language with no real influence. It makes not sense to compare english with esperanto. I like esperanto, but I have to be realistic: Probably esperanto may no be imposed on the english.
La realajo estas foje tre malagrabla.
Peace.
English, since I speak it.
I agree with most people, English is applied as help language. It is useful for both a job and communications. And it is the tendency of today. Nobody knows that the future will present for us, maybe it will the Japanese language.
Hello!
As for me, I think learning English is far more useful than Esperanto. What’s more, I think it’s hard to folow our modern life without English language. It’s a language of all technology, news papers, TV etc. I’ve been learning Esperanto only for a few months and I have to say that it’s an interesting language too. Moreover, it’s easy to learn it after English and French. Unfortunately, there isn’t a great number of people who speak E-o and it’s not well-spread thoughout the world. But if you have a free time and a wish, that’d be funny to learn this language!
I don’t know Esperanto so I cannot tell you which is helpful, but I still have some difficulty to listen to natural English so maybe hearing someone speak Esperanto is easier than listening to natural English because there is no native Esperanto speakers in the world.
If you have to choose between 2 million enthusiasts and close to 2 billion speakers worldwide, I think it’s an easy choice. Esperanto might be easier, but you won’t come across any native speakers and I don’t think that it will help you learn English or any other language faster afterwards.
I’m not hostile to Esperanto (after all, I’ve studied it at the university), but I’m skeptic about the claims that Esperanto itself prepares you better to learn subsequent languages; that Esperanto is more useful than a major language; that you will find Esperanto speakers in every corner of the world and so on (ad nauseam).
Maybe the pure Esperantists are more welcoming:
1 TO the random foreigner
2 THAN the random native of any other language
However, I’m still more likely to bump into a speaker of English/Spanish/German/French/Russian… at least in the part of the world I’m travelling to. At work today I met two Urdu speakers (and I know of at least one more in town). That’s three more than the number of Esperanto speakers here… (except for myself, of course!).
The propaedeutic value of Esperanto is the benefit that using Esperanto as an introduction to foreign language study has on the teaching of subsequent foreign languages. http://tinyurl.com/3xpq35y (you can see there many experiments they’ve made during the last century)
I have a friend who had just started studying esperanto, just a couple of weeks before, he worked in a shop in Barcelona. One day a man came into the shop, he looked kind of indian, he tried to speak with him in Spanish and English but that man couldn’t speak a word in those languages, then my friend asked… Esperanto? (that was really a wild guess… ), then the man began to smile and they started to talk in Esperanto, not much because my friend didn’t speak much, but just enough to chat a bit. So you never know. Jeff maybe there are more esperantists there than yourself!.
dilemme actually there are around 1000 to 2000 native speakers (which you won’t probably ever meet in your life, yes), but anyway the point is that because there is not a “perfect” way to pronounce Esperanto (just some basic rules and you’re good to go, you can have a touch of your native language and that’s ok) you won’t feel ashamed because you’re not native and you don’t pronounce it as it “should” be, as natives do. And you’re both in the same situation, learners of a second language (nice, because it is very easy to learn). It’s not like when you speak to a native English speaker, you can be an advance learner of English but the native will always be above you (as in ease of speaking).
I listen to the International Chinese radio, they have a daily program of 1 hour in Esperanto and I can understand them perfectly even though they sound VERY chinese, just like when a French speaks Esperanto has a strong French accent and that’s ok too, I can understand them perfectly. It’s as if we’re all in a neutral place, all equals and it feels good.
Cheers!
English and Esperanto are not mutually exclusive. I learned both. Learning Esperanto took me a few weeks. Learning English took me many years. I was able to use Esperanto earlier than English, even if I started first with English.
There is no reason to learn only one of them. Learning Esperanto first will shorten the learning time. And if you already know English, dedicating a few weeks to learn Esperanto will not hurt.
Esperanto is a language, not a project. It has been used during 123 years. There are at least 50000 books written in Esperanto, half of them are originals, the rest are translations from other languages.
Just in the web you will find thousands of books and magazines written in Esperanto … and many more thousands of web pages, forums in Esperanto, music, videos, wikipedia. (vikipedio)
Esperanto is a language, not a project. The main reason of
Esperanto, as any other language, is communication, not
fighting anything.
Obvious choice … Many Esperanto speakers had tried
English and couldn’t learn it. Esperanto was the best choice
for them. Some of them went on learning English after
learning Esperanto.
Learning English as a second language requires time,
money, and brain (at least good memory) Esperanto you
can learn for free in your spare time.
I can only laugh at the opinions about Esperanto by people
that had never used Esperanto or people that have never
been in a meeting with hundreds of people. Once a year there
is a world meeting with thousands of people, from 50 or 60
countries with mutual understanding without the need for
translators or interpreters. And during time off, they chat with
any other member with complete understanding.
Several “simplified” English exist. One is called “Basic
English” and has only 850 words. It grew into “Special
English”, a language containing about 1600 words, used by
the Voice of America.
This language is much easier to understand that other forms
of English. For the native speaker of English is very difficult
to limit their language to these 1600 words.
It is much easier to learn Esperanto.
One day we will have Esperanto at LingQ. I will learn Esperanto at LingQ and then go to a conference somewhere and meet some nice people. We will drink wine made by Esperantists, eat Esperanto food, listen to Esperanto music and discuss life and politics and friendship, all in Esperanto. Isn’t that what life is all about? OK we will use some other wine, food and music, but we will enjoy each other’s company via Esperanto.
I haven’t learned French or Spanish, but I feel that Esperanto is similar to them. French, Spanish, and Esperanto are all Greek to me. Personally, I believe that German is suitable for the universal language because the structures of sentences are very rigid and the relationships between pronunciations and spellings are more logical than English.
Steve you can eat food made by Esperantists, maybe also wine. But you definitely can listen to Esperanto music, there are lots of that
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vxzSkG2pfE
Can’t wait for Lingq to add Esperanto!! ;)))
Enriquee,
"Learning English as a second language requires time,
money, and brain (at least good memory) Esperanto you
can learn for free in your spare time. "
I don’t agree with that. I am learning English in my spare time, and English can be learnt for free also (I usually listen to free podcasts). You don’t have to have a gift for learning English or other languages.
Plus, You don’t have to go to a language school and waste a lot of money and time. The point is that it just takes time and you can learn by yourself. Of course, you should choose a good method.
@Berta: You spoke about different accents in Esperanto that chinese of french people have. Is there something considered as a “neutral” accent in Esperanto?