5 ms·

If learning Esperanto really solved the same problem that learning, say, Spanish or Mandarin would solve, then you might have a point. But Mandarin has just und

by nilkn 7y ago

If learning Esperanto really solved the same problem that learning, say, Spanish or Mandarin would solve, then you might have a point. But Mandarin has just under a billion native speakers and another 200 million second language speakers, whereas Esperanto has as few as 63k speakers combined from both categories. The combined number for Spanish is easily 500+ million. The only compelling argument I see is the one you mentioned about using Esperanto as a quick path to, say, French. However, if we use your Spanish numbers, it'd need to reduce Spanish acquisition time from 500 hours down to at most 450 in order for it to be a net gain. Personally, as someone who's studied Spanish as a second language, I just can't imagine it would have helped me going through Esperanto first.

chillacy 7y ago
Again it depends what you're looking for, if you just want to talk to as many speakers as possible and don't care how long it takes, then yes, spend 5 years intensely learning Mandarin, everything else is a waste of time. But if you want a fast path to learning a foreign language (which plugs you into a meta language learning community), then Esperanto is very interesting. Research is fairly promising for French, doesn't look like it helps as much with spanish, or at least nobody's done research on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaedeutic_value_of_Esperanto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaedeutic_value_of_Esperant... Anecdotally it works well for french because you're secretly learning French word roots, and it builds confidence in the process of language learning.
- Mediterraneo10 7y ago
  Learning Esperanto first may lead to faster proficiency in French, but it may not be good proficiency. This is because learning the words first through Esperanto would ingrain some bad habits in the learner that will be hard to eradicate after he or she moves on to French. What I have in mind is the fact that French distinguishes between the vowels /ɔ/ and /o/, and between /ɛ/ and /e/. When learning new words, foreigners must get this distinction down right, it is key to having a decent accent in French, and in some cases avoiding misunderstandings. Yet when French roots were used in Esperanto, those vowels were leveled as just /o/ and /e/, respectively. That means that the learner does not learn the right French vowels from the start, and is likely to continue using in French the /o/ learned from Esperanto when the vowel is actually /ɔ/ etc. In modern language teaching, it is considered vital to avoid pronunciation mistakes from the very start, because otherwise they become too firmly rooted to get rid of later.
  - chillacy 7y ago
    This is a huge hypothetical scenario, I'd caution any experiment with an N=1 but this is an N=0 example. Anecdotally I don't think my French is worse off because I learned Esperanto first, (nor any of the other languages I learned). If anything, learning more languages makes me more aware of the importance of pronunciation as a meta-learning aspect of languages. It's not like those French roots aren't completely mangled by English learners anyways, words like "-ion" in "situation" and "conversation". But you learn just like any other learner.
jodrellblank 7y ago
How long are you planning on living? 63,000 people is chatting to one person per day for 172 years, assuming no new people learn it in that time and you never speak to the same person again. It's a stretch to say every one of them would want to chat with you and you with them, but by the time you get to native languages with a million speakers, isn't that plenty? Is there any significant advantage in Mandarin having a billion native speakers over German having 83 million or Czech having 10 million, or generally trying to max(number_of_speakers) as a useful metric already orders of magnitude above the number you could reasonably interact with in a lifetime? If learning Esperanto really solved the same problem that learning, say, Spanish or Mandarin would solve, What problem are you saying that learning Mandarin solves?
- nilkn 7y ago
  I think it’s a disingenuous interpretation to think I was suggesting one could talk to every native speaker of a target language. With Spanish, say, I gain an immediately practical language that I can use weekly if not daily right here in the US. It gives me unprecedented access to the people and culture of Mexico, Spain, and much of the entire continent of South America. I gain access to a vast body of original literature, music, and media in Spanish that isn’t just a translation but unique to the language. These are the sorts of things solved by learning a language like Spanish.
- oarabbus_ 7y ago
  > Is there any significant advantage in Mandarin having a billion native speakers over German having 83 million or Czech having 10 million Yes, definitely.
  - jodrellblank 7y ago
    Citation needed. I have no plans to ever go to China. Mandarin has an estimated 0 utility for me. I have read more school-level German than I ever will read or speak Mandarin in my life. The number of Mandarin speakers could be 5 or 5 trillion, if they're all half a world away it doesn't affect me. Germany is close, I have been there, I might go again. Dunbar's number is around 150, as long as the number of speakers is sufficient that there's a good chance of finding 500 to talk to in a lifetime, and 500 books or films of interest to consume in a lifetime, more than that seems no benefit. That is, 100 people is not enough - but somewhere in the region of tens or hundreds of thousands seems easily enough for a boundary. "There are a billion people, therefore learn this language" is even less convincing as a reason to learn something; it's popular, so you should do it".

by nilkn 7y ago

chillacy 7y ago

Again it depends what you're looking for, if you just want to talk to as many speakers as possible and don't care how long it takes, then yes, spend 5 years intensely learning Mandarin, everything else is a waste of time. But if you want a fast path to learning a foreign language (which plugs you into a meta language learning community), then Esperanto is very interesting. Research is fairly promising for French, doesn't look like it helps as much with spanish, or at least nobody's done research on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaedeutic_value_of_Esperanto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaedeutic_value_of_Esperant... Anecdotally it works well for french because you're secretly learning French word roots, and it builds confidence in the process of language learning.

Mediterraneo10 7y ago
Learning Esperanto first may lead to faster proficiency in French, but it may not be good proficiency. This is because learning the words first through Esperanto would ingrain some bad habits in the learner that will be hard to eradicate after he or she moves on to French. What I have in mind is the fact that French distinguishes between the vowels /ɔ/ and /o/, and between /ɛ/ and /e/. When learning new words, foreigners must get this distinction down right, it is key to having a decent accent in French, and in some cases avoiding misunderstandings. Yet when French roots were used in Esperanto, those vowels were leveled as just /o/ and /e/, respectively. That means that the learner does not learn the right French vowels from the start, and is likely to continue using in French the /o/ learned from Esperanto when the vowel is actually /ɔ/ etc. In modern language teaching, it is considered vital to avoid pronunciation mistakes from the very start, because otherwise they become too firmly rooted to get rid of later.
- chillacy 7y ago
  This is a huge hypothetical scenario, I'd caution any experiment with an N=1 but this is an N=0 example. Anecdotally I don't think my French is worse off because I learned Esperanto first, (nor any of the other languages I learned). If anything, learning more languages makes me more aware of the importance of pronunciation as a meta-learning aspect of languages. It's not like those French roots aren't completely mangled by English learners anyways, words like "-ion" in "situation" and "conversation". But you learn just like any other learner.

jodrellblank 7y ago

How long are you planning on living? 63,000 people is chatting to one person per day for 172 years, assuming no new people learn it in that time and you never speak to the same person again. It's a stretch to say every one of them would want to chat with you and you with them, but by the time you get to native languages with a million speakers, isn't that plenty? Is there any significant advantage in Mandarin having a billion native speakers over German having 83 million or Czech having 10 million, or generally trying to max(number_of_speakers) as a useful metric already orders of magnitude above the number you could reasonably interact with in a lifetime? If learning Esperanto really solved the same problem that learning, say, Spanish or Mandarin would solve, What problem are you saying that learning Mandarin solves?

nilkn 7y ago
I think it’s a disingenuous interpretation to think I was suggesting one could talk to every native speaker of a target language. With Spanish, say, I gain an immediately practical language that I can use weekly if not daily right here in the US. It gives me unprecedented access to the people and culture of Mexico, Spain, and much of the entire continent of South America. I gain access to a vast body of original literature, music, and media in Spanish that isn’t just a translation but unique to the language. These are the sorts of things solved by learning a language like Spanish.
oarabbus_ 7y ago
> Is there any significant advantage in Mandarin having a billion native speakers over German having 83 million or Czech having 10 million Yes, definitely.
- jodrellblank 7y ago
  Citation needed. I have no plans to ever go to China. Mandarin has an estimated 0 utility for me. I have read more school-level German than I ever will read or speak Mandarin in my life. The number of Mandarin speakers could be 5 or 5 trillion, if they're all half a world away it doesn't affect me. Germany is close, I have been there, I might go again. Dunbar's number is around 150, as long as the number of speakers is sufficient that there's a good chance of finding 500 to talk to in a lifetime, and 500 books or films of interest to consume in a lifetime, more than that seems no benefit. That is, 100 people is not enough - but somewhere in the region of tens or hundreds of thousands seems easily enough for a boundary. "There are a billion people, therefore learn this language" is even less convincing as a reason to learn something; it's popular, so you should do it".