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I disagree with your opening argument. Python is objectively easier to learn than c, no matter which one has learned first. In my own experience, I learned Espe

I disagree with your opening argument. Python is objectively easier to learn than c, no matter which one has learned first. In my own experience, I learned Esperanto at about 10X the rate at which I learned French (though this was also due to teacher quality). Esperanto has no irregular verbs, unambiguous pronunciations, and only a quarter of the usual vocabulary to learn because nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs all share identical roots. Being a native English speaker I did know similar roots more often, but no more so than I did for French. The only place where I would agree Europeans have a significant advantage is that Esperanto has a European style letter script rather than an Asian character-based one. A fair point, and unfortunately no one has come up with something halfway between a letter and a character script. The best apolitical solution to that may be to make two alphabets for the next iteration of Esperanto.

emodendroket 9y ago
OK, so you've proved that Esperanto is easier than a natural European language for you, a native speaker of English, to learn. Granted. But it's not a refutation of my argument that for someone who speaks, say, Japanese (also a language with almost no irregular verbs or ambiguous pronunciations, by the way), essentially none of the roots will be familiar and so it will still be much more difficult for them than for you. The script is not really an issue; Chinese is the only major east Asian language (or language family) written exclusively in Chinese characters without a phonetic script, and even then the Roman alphabet is familiar.
- D-Coder 9y ago
  Esperanto is certainly easier for someone who already knows a Romance language. However, even for a non-Romance speaker, it will be easier to learn than other Romance languages.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    Sure, but what I am saying here is that if you don't speak a European language any Romance language, even Esperanto, is hard. It's easy to not appreciate this, but in a way the hardest thing about learning a language is mastering the vocabulary. Think about your native language. When was he last time you encountered a grammatical structure you were unfamiliar with? Now when was the last time you encountered a word you were unfamiliar with? If you're studying two related languages, like Spanish and English, you get a huge boost from the fact that the more difficult words are actually more likely to be the same. You don't have to study very hard to understand what "planeta" or "geografía" or "farmacia" mean. On the other hand, if you're studying Japanese, you have to memorize words like "wakusei," "chiri", and "yakkyoku" which have no resemblance whatever to the English words. And it just goes on and on and you are never really done encountering all the words you will ever encounter. Compared to this slog, mastering a grammar and the number of irregularities typical of a natural language is a minor annoyance.

emodendroket 9y ago

OK, so you've proved that Esperanto is easier than a natural European language for you, a native speaker of English, to learn. Granted. But it's not a refutation of my argument that for someone who speaks, say, Japanese (also a language with almost no irregular verbs or ambiguous pronunciations, by the way), essentially none of the roots will be familiar and so it will still be much more difficult for them than for you. The script is not really an issue; Chinese is the only major east Asian language (or language family) written exclusively in Chinese characters without a phonetic script, and even then the Roman alphabet is familiar.

D-Coder 9y ago
Esperanto is certainly easier for someone who already knows a Romance language. However, even for a non-Romance speaker, it will be easier to learn than other Romance languages.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Sure, but what I am saying here is that if you don't speak a European language any Romance language, even Esperanto, is hard. It's easy to not appreciate this, but in a way the hardest thing about learning a language is mastering the vocabulary. Think about your native language. When was he last time you encountered a grammatical structure you were unfamiliar with? Now when was the last time you encountered a word you were unfamiliar with? If you're studying two related languages, like Spanish and English, you get a huge boost from the fact that the more difficult words are actually more likely to be the same. You don't have to study very hard to understand what "planeta" or "geografía" or "farmacia" mean. On the other hand, if you're studying Japanese, you have to memorize words like "wakusei," "chiri", and "yakkyoku" which have no resemblance whatever to the English words. And it just goes on and on and you are never really done encountering all the words you will ever encounter. Compared to this slog, mastering a grammar and the number of irregularities typical of a natural language is a minor annoyance.