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Learning Esperanto is something that I really want to do, I've just never been able to stick to it. I imagine its because its has no use in my everyday life, an

Learning Esperanto is something that I really want to do, I've just never been able to stick to it. I imagine its because its has no use in my everyday life, and so I tend to brush it off in favor of other things (which admittedly I brush off as well because I'm lazy, but Esperanto prioritises behind those and so when I'm not being lazy I do the other things first and never spend enough time in Esperanto to make any progress).

martinrue 7y ago
Between podcasts, international friends on Facebook/Twitter, and voice chats (Telegram is good for this, as lots of Esperanto speakers use it: see https://telegramo.org https://telegramo.org) I find a way to regularly use Esperanto in my daily life. I also attend a few annual events that run for a week in which 200+ people get together and use only Esperanto, so that obviously helps a lot. When I first started learning and it was only an academic pursuit for me, I lost interest a few times. But having made a bunch of friends through the language at this point, I now use it the same way I would any other language (and Esperanto has definitely been significantly easier to reach a useful level of fluency than my efforts to learn Hebrew and German). There are a few other posts on my blog about my experiences with the language, in the event those are interesting.
jodrellblank 7y ago
Thinking about this kind of thing recently, I'm not sure it helps to consider "learning" as a boolean state which you don't have, then you study, then you have forever more. Think of "use it or lose it" - things you don't use, from muscles to dexterity to athletic endurance to mental arithmetic - fade with time. Entropy takes your world, objects get dusty and rusty and creaky if you don't keep up maintenance, food stores rot, clothes and shoes perish, monetary value falls. The idea that we can have things for long periods of time without using them and they stay the same and ready is more difficult than it seems at first. Also think of "you are what you repeatedly do" - a language isn't something you memorize, it's something you do, something you use, and you can use it more or less regularly or intensely. Perhaps everything is like this. From considering that kind of thing, there's no level where you can learn it, then stop learning and retain it forever after. If you do stop, your memory and skill with it will fade ("I used to be able to do that!"). I imagine its because its has no use in my everyday life Not at all; lots of hobbies and interests have no everyday use but are still attention grabbing, interesting, captivating, etc. People who spend time doing crosswords probably don't do them because crossword puzzles have use in their everyday life. Most people who play instruments don't earn money or give everyday performances. Most people who read fiction probably don't think it has use. Maybe you're not lazy, and you don't really want to learn Esperanto, don't find it interesting, but have become trapped in a pattern of thought of a vague feeling that you "should" for one reason or another?; fear of missing out, or to be a good and respectable person in some way, or because it would make you more interesting, or give you an excuse to avoid a more difficult language, or uphold something you told someone you would do that one time, or any number of other not-too-convincing-when-you-look-closely reasons? 'Study' is what we have to do for things we don't care about. We have to forcibly prioritise them because otherwise lack of interest means we ignore them. Things we really take interest in, we do them. They don't need artificial studying and they don't need prioritizing, they may need other things pushed aside to make time, because they are already a priority ("I want to see what happens in this book, better make time for it").

martinrue 7y ago

Between podcasts, international friends on Facebook/Twitter, and voice chats (Telegram is good for this, as lots of Esperanto speakers use it: see https://telegramo.org https://telegramo.org) I find a way to regularly use Esperanto in my daily life. I also attend a few annual events that run for a week in which 200+ people get together and use only Esperanto, so that obviously helps a lot. When I first started learning and it was only an academic pursuit for me, I lost interest a few times. But having made a bunch of friends through the language at this point, I now use it the same way I would any other language (and Esperanto has definitely been significantly easier to reach a useful level of fluency than my efforts to learn Hebrew and German). There are a few other posts on my blog about my experiences with the language, in the event those are interesting.

jodrellblank 7y ago

Thinking about this kind of thing recently, I'm not sure it helps to consider "learning" as a boolean state which you don't have, then you study, then you have forever more. Think of "use it or lose it" - things you don't use, from muscles to dexterity to athletic endurance to mental arithmetic - fade with time. Entropy takes your world, objects get dusty and rusty and creaky if you don't keep up maintenance, food stores rot, clothes and shoes perish, monetary value falls. The idea that we can have things for long periods of time without using them and they stay the same and ready is more difficult than it seems at first. Also think of "you are what you repeatedly do" - a language isn't something you memorize, it's something you do, something you use, and you can use it more or less regularly or intensely. Perhaps everything is like this. From considering that kind of thing, there's no level where you can learn it, then stop learning and retain it forever after. If you do stop, your memory and skill with it will fade ("I used to be able to do that!"). I imagine its because its has no use in my everyday life Not at all; lots of hobbies and interests have no everyday use but are still attention grabbing, interesting, captivating, etc. People who spend time doing crosswords probably don't do them because crossword puzzles have use in their everyday life. Most people who play instruments don't earn money or give everyday performances. Most people who read fiction probably don't think it has use. Maybe you're not lazy, and you don't really want to learn Esperanto, don't find it interesting, but have become trapped in a pattern of thought of a vague feeling that you "should" for one reason or another?; fear of missing out, or to be a good and respectable person in some way, or because it would make you more interesting, or give you an excuse to avoid a more difficult language, or uphold something you told someone you would do that one time, or any number of other not-too-convincing-when-you-look-closely reasons? 'Study' is what we have to do for things we don't care about. We have to forcibly prioritise them because otherwise lack of interest means we ignore them. Things we really take interest in, we do them. They don't need artificial studying and they don't need prioritizing, they may need other things pushed aside to make time, because they are already a priority ("I want to see what happens in this book, better make time for it").