learn esperanto

I’ve completed several courses at lernu.net including…
Mi estas komencanto de Esperanto (audio)
La puzlo Esperanto
Voyagxu kun Zam
Bildoj kaj Demandoj
Ana Pana
and I’m currently studying Ana renkontas.

Also, I’m keeping an Esperanto blog about my progress, doing Esperanto crosswords and some reading. Also, I put an announcement out through an Esperanto site, and I already have 2 Esperanto penpals!

I joined Esperanto-USA at the beginning of March or the end of Feb. I’ve been doing the 10-lesson postal course, I have Richardsons book and I downloaded Kurso De Esperanto.

I wish there was a more clear cut curriculum for Esperanto learners. Maybe I’ll make one myself as I find it confusing and a bit difficult to juggle the three resources. It seems that Richardsons is the best course I have at this time, but I haven’t gotten very far in any of the three courses.

Kurso d Esperanto = Lesson 2
Free 10-Postal = Lesson 3
Richardsons = Lesson 4

Last Friday I started an online course on Lernu.net called “Mi estas komencanto.” At a lesson a day, today I completed lesson 7.
I downloaded some Esperanto music and a Polish-Esperanto podcast. After this course, I will progress to the next course suggested and so on. Hopefully, in a few months, I’ll be able to mark this goal completed!

I probably don’t have enough years left to master a multitude of national languages, but I may have time to become proficient in Esperanto so that I can effectively communicate with diverse people worldwide.

I’m already corresponding with a guy who knows no English, just as I know no Polish. Fabulous!

It was my resolution for this New Year to learn Esperanto. I want to be able to speak, read and write reasonably well in Esperanto by the 1st of January 2010.

Thinking this I should speak it fluently already but I can only understand some things. I would like that Esperanto would be spoken by many people because it is a language that doesn´t belong to any country so it´s kind of neutral. It is unfair that a language spoken in one country is the main language of the world. And if Esperanto is so easy it would be much easier to many people to be able to communicate to foreigners. But I am a bit lazy and as it is not widely spoken I don´t feel the necessity to learn it although I would like to do it one day.
I actually started to learn it because my boyfriend is fluent in it but then I preferred to invest my time in English, Spanish and Italian. One thing that motivates me is to be able to talk to my boyfriend and not many people would understand it. ;) (around one million people in the world).

I can understand 80% already…

So far, I have completed the first two lessons on http://pacujo.net/esperanto/course/materialo/
it is extremely easy to learn and translate the sentences, which is a real confidence booster. I need to say them out loud as I do them so I can get the right pronunciation, and not just get the written forms correct.
I have a notebook where I write out the sentences and vocabulary and translate everything. I find that if I write using a pencil, I can focus and learn more effectively than on a computer.

Listen, here’s a crash course in the language.
It uses the latin alphabet, except for a few letters, that have a circumflex above them (looks like a roof or hat or something). Since they’re inconvenient to type on a computer, people usually type “gx” for a “g” with a roof above it. Such letters are cx, gx, hx, jx, sx, ux. These are (of course) coupled with your standard c, g, h, j, s, u. These letters sound a little different, but don’t worry about it for now, because this is purely a written guide. How to pronounce the letters can be found in any esperanto school book. Oh yeah, the letters x, y, w, q, are omitted, they don’t exist.

All nouns end with an “-o”
All adjectives end with an “-a”
All adverbs end with an “-e”

Verbs are a funny thing, they end in different endings dependent on what tense is used.

The three common:

Present tense: “-as”
Past tense: “-is”
Future tense: “-os”

There are a few more, but it’s not really beginner stuff.

Definite article: La (works like the English “the”)
Indefinite article: there is none (no equivalent to English “a or an”)

Plural form ends with “-j”

Accusative ends with “-n”, and adjectives are dependent on the nouns for both plurals and accusatives.

Basic pronouns: Mi (I), Vi (you), Li, Sxi, Gxi (he, she, it)
No difference in pronouns between subject-form and object-from. Object-from logically (and simply) gets the accusative “-n” ending. e.g. Mi = I, Min = Me.

Example of all the grammar above: Mi mangxis la grandajn pomojn malrapide.

This means: I (pronoun) ate (past tense, notice the ending “-is”) the (definite article) big (endng in “-jn”, both forms adhere from the noun) apples (noun ending in “-jn” making it plural and accusative) slowly (adverb, ending in “-e”, does not retain the “-jn”). I ate the big apples slowly!

Hopefully this is helpful to some of you who are somewhat familiar with grammar. I’m somewhat of a amateur-linguist myself…
Also, hopefully this made some people keen on maybe learning more. Go to an Esperanto youth congress. It’s like a week-long-24-hour-a-day-party. No sober people anywhere! You’ll learn quickly there.

I joined lernu.net which looks like a really good resource. Looking forward to spending some time later on getting into the basics.

I’m so grateful for the opportunities and inspiration which has arisen from my accidental discovery of 43 things, which came about through my accidental discovery of Eckhart Tolle’s work, which came at a time when I was struggling to find my path and move forward into a place where I can live my life fully and without self-imposed limitations.

Fantastic.