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>After six months, I attended the international Esperanto conference in Seoul, Korea, and spoke only Esperanto for a few days. I was glad I was doing it, and so

by Nadya 7y ago

>After six months, I attended the international Esperanto conference in Seoul, Korea, and spoke only Esperanto for a few days. I was glad I was doing it, and somewhat glad I did it, but in hindsight maybe should have used that time to learn Mandarin or another language where I can communicate with people that don't speak English. Esperanto is a language where you can communicate with people that don't speak English ;) If you weren't already bilingual - the best part about Esperanto is it teaches you how to learn a second language by doing it. It also gets out of your way since, for Romantic-based languages, the grammar and vocabulary mostly stays out of your way and you can focus more on "actually learning" than on building vocab or remembering weird edge cases in the grammar. Your time spent learning Esperanto may have actually created a solid foundation to learning Mandarin, if that's what you desire to learn! There are studies that learning Esperanto can aid in learning other languages [0], although many of them are quite dated. It seems many of the studies agree that unless you're already particularly adept at learning a new language - learning Esperanto will aid you in learning other languages. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaedeutic_value_of_Esperanto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaedeutic_value_of_Esperant...

jcranmer 7y ago
The studies listed on the Wikipedia page are not particularly persuasive, and some of them have a heavy pro-Eseperanto bias in construction. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14848019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14848019 has a more thorough criticism of one of the studies in particular.
- hk__2 7y ago
  It’s probably the same for Wikipedia in English ; in French the minute you touch the Esperanto-related articles you get hordes of Esperantists reverting your changes. If you introduce some (sourced) criticism of the language or anything about its low number of speakers you’re labeled as anti-Esperanto. This is an area of Wikipedia I don’t want to touch anymore.
  - jodrellblank 7y ago
    Aside, there is an Esperanto Wikipedia: https://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikipedio https://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikipedio
bctnry 7y ago
> Your time spent learning Esperanto may have actually created a solid foundation to learning Mandarin, if that's what you desire to learn! As a native Mandarin speaker who also knows Esperanto I can tell you this is almost 100% (if not exactly 100%) not the case. If learning Esperanto gives you motivation to learn more, maybe; but the two languages are way too different that it wouldn't help much.
- Nadya 7y ago
  Your case is not only different from the one I'm claiming it helps (you already spoke Mandarin natively) but also I'm specifically claiming it helps monolinguals who are learning their first non-native language. So unless you went Mandarin --> Esperanto --> English and found Esperanto didn't help you learn English at all then I what I said doesn't apply to you. If you were either bilingual before learning Esperanto I don't think it'd have been very useful as a "diving board" to learning another language as you've already have the knowledge of speaking two languages. And I don't wish to make any assumptions, but if you've been bilingual your entire life I don't think you can even accurately imagine what it is like to be monolingual. Bilinguals have an easier time learning a third language than monolinguals have learning a second [0] [1] [2]. I personally give credit to 3 months of learning Esperanto for helping me get over a huge hurdle in my Japanese studies (after 2 years of studying). Not because Esperanto and Japanese have anything in common - but because learning certain grammatical structures in Esperanto helped the Japanese equivalents finally "click" after I had been struggling with learning them for so long. This doesn't seem to be an uncommon occurrence within the Esperanto community (for those with non-Esperanto target languages). The plural of anecdotes is of course not "data" but the studies (however criticized) and experiences of countless people (including myself) all point to it helping. I hear plenty of stories from people who've never bothered to learn it saying they won't learn it because they'd rather learn their target language instead. It's difficult to even find a story from someone who's learned it and claims it didn't help them at all in learning a non-Esperanto target language. I've tried Googling around a bit - I can only ever find people who shit on conlangs as a concept and refuse to learn one. The longest and hardest thing when learning a language is learning how to learn a language and that's what I personally believe Esperanto (or any conlang really) helps with. I would only ever personally recommend a brief stint (no more than a month or two) of Esperanto for monolinguals. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3583091/#b22-cer-13-12 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3583091/#b22-ce... [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19648456 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19648456 [2] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110201110915.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110201110915.h...
Dylan16807 7y ago
> Esperanto is a language where you can communicate with people that don't speak English ;) To some extent, but what percentage of esperanto speakers don't also know english? Is it pretty big?
patrec 7y ago
> Esperanto is a language where you can communicate with people that don't speak English ;) Both claims are ridiculous. Have you ever met a single person in your life who was fluent or at least good conversational in Esperanto but could not speak English? To say that learning Esperanto will provide you with a solid base for learning Mandarin is about as plausible as saying that learning Biochemistry will provide you with a solid base for learning Mandarin. Learning Esperanto might be a great hobby and way to find like minded people, but the return of investment for unrelated, completely practical pursuits is highly negative. If you want to learn Mandarin, just study Mandarin.
- Mediterraneo10 7y ago
  > Have you ever met a single person in your life who was fluent or at least good conversational in Esperanto but could not speak English? Yes, definitely. When I was active in the Esperanto movement in the 1990s and early millennium, a huge amount of the Eastern Europeans who attended congresses or hosted foreigners through the movement's hospitality-exchange system had little or no English skills. They had learned Russian, German, or French in school, not English. This was also the case for some Esperantists from francophone nations of Africa; some of those countries were historically so fixated on French as the international language that English teaching in schools took off only recently. Nowadays the younger generations of Esperantists are likely to speak English, but to judge from photos, the crowd attending the main annual Esperanto congress is generally pretty geriatric, so that older generation without English is still commonly met.
  - patrec 7y ago
    How about outside Esperanto events?
    - gordonguthrie 7y ago
      Esperantujo is Esperanto events
    - gordonguthrie 7y ago

by Nadya 7y ago

jcranmer 7y ago

The studies listed on the Wikipedia page are not particularly persuasive, and some of them have a heavy pro-Eseperanto bias in construction. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14848019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14848019 has a more thorough criticism of one of the studies in particular.

hk__2 7y ago
It’s probably the same for Wikipedia in English ; in French the minute you touch the Esperanto-related articles you get hordes of Esperantists reverting your changes. If you introduce some (sourced) criticism of the language or anything about its low number of speakers you’re labeled as anti-Esperanto. This is an area of Wikipedia I don’t want to touch anymore.
- jodrellblank 7y ago
  Aside, there is an Esperanto Wikipedia: https://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikipedio https://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikipedio

bctnry 7y ago

> Your time spent learning Esperanto may have actually created a solid foundation to learning Mandarin, if that's what you desire to learn! As a native Mandarin speaker who also knows Esperanto I can tell you this is almost 100% (if not exactly 100%) not the case. If learning Esperanto gives you motivation to learn more, maybe; but the two languages are way too different that it wouldn't help much.

Nadya 7y ago
Your case is not only different from the one I'm claiming it helps (you already spoke Mandarin natively) but also I'm specifically claiming it helps monolinguals who are learning their first non-native language. So unless you went Mandarin --> Esperanto --> English and found Esperanto didn't help you learn English at all then I what I said doesn't apply to you. If you were either bilingual before learning Esperanto I don't think it'd have been very useful as a "diving board" to learning another language as you've already have the knowledge of speaking two languages. And I don't wish to make any assumptions, but if you've been bilingual your entire life I don't think you can even accurately imagine what it is like to be monolingual. Bilinguals have an easier time learning a third language than monolinguals have learning a second [0] [1] [2]. I personally give credit to 3 months of learning Esperanto for helping me get over a huge hurdle in my Japanese studies (after 2 years of studying). Not because Esperanto and Japanese have anything in common - but because learning certain grammatical structures in Esperanto helped the Japanese equivalents finally "click" after I had been struggling with learning them for so long. This doesn't seem to be an uncommon occurrence within the Esperanto community (for those with non-Esperanto target languages). The plural of anecdotes is of course not "data" but the studies (however criticized) and experiences of countless people (including myself) all point to it helping. I hear plenty of stories from people who've never bothered to learn it saying they won't learn it because they'd rather learn their target language instead. It's difficult to even find a story from someone who's learned it and claims it didn't help them at all in learning a non-Esperanto target language. I've tried Googling around a bit - I can only ever find people who shit on conlangs as a concept and refuse to learn one. The longest and hardest thing when learning a language is learning how to learn a language and that's what I personally believe Esperanto (or any conlang really) helps with. I would only ever personally recommend a brief stint (no more than a month or two) of Esperanto for monolinguals. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3583091/#b22-cer-13-12 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3583091/#b22-ce... [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19648456 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19648456 [2] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110201110915.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110201110915.h...

Dylan16807 7y ago

> Esperanto is a language where you can communicate with people that don't speak English ;) To some extent, but what percentage of esperanto speakers don't also know english? Is it pretty big?

patrec 7y ago

> Esperanto is a language where you can communicate with people that don't speak English ;) Both claims are ridiculous. Have you ever met a single person in your life who was fluent or at least good conversational in Esperanto but could not speak English? To say that learning Esperanto will provide you with a solid base for learning Mandarin is about as plausible as saying that learning Biochemistry will provide you with a solid base for learning Mandarin. Learning Esperanto might be a great hobby and way to find like minded people, but the return of investment for unrelated, completely practical pursuits is highly negative. If you want to learn Mandarin, just study Mandarin.

Mediterraneo10 7y ago
> Have you ever met a single person in your life who was fluent or at least good conversational in Esperanto but could not speak English? Yes, definitely. When I was active in the Esperanto movement in the 1990s and early millennium, a huge amount of the Eastern Europeans who attended congresses or hosted foreigners through the movement's hospitality-exchange system had little or no English skills. They had learned Russian, German, or French in school, not English. This was also the case for some Esperantists from francophone nations of Africa; some of those countries were historically so fixated on French as the international language that English teaching in schools took off only recently. Nowadays the younger generations of Esperantists are likely to speak English, but to judge from photos, the crowd attending the main annual Esperanto congress is generally pretty geriatric, so that older generation without English is still commonly met.
- patrec 7y ago
  How about outside Esperanto events?
  - gordonguthrie 7y ago
    Esperantujo is Esperanto events
  - gordonguthrie 7y ago