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/r/learnesperanto's
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The most popular Products mentioned in /r/learnesperanto:
The most popular Services mentioned in /r/learnesperanto:
lernu!
Duolingo
Project Gutenberg
Drops
Crowdin
Whisper.sh
Clozemaster
Ba Ba Dum
Glosbe
skribbl
HelloTalk
Anki
Memrise
The most popular reviews in /r/learnesperanto:
Reading is always good!
Have your tried La teorio Nakamura at the Lernu! website?
I tried it as a total beginner and it didn't go so well, mainly because I didn't know anything about any of the structure in the language. It felt overwhelming and majestically hard.
I picked it up again almost a half year later, I find myself understanding 90% of the text and it is just on the right level for me.
The first few chapters felt so easy when I picked up the book again, but the text becomes increasingly more difficult with time.
The story could be better, but it's not bad and it doesn't feel boring to read. I think I could have returned to the book sooner than I did, but I didn't want to read a book I had to Google the meaning of every second word.
Try it out, and if you find yourself not actually reading the book (being interrupted by checking words and grammar), then wait a month and come back when you know more.
It's vocab is mostly derived from Romance and Germanic languages, with a small amount of Slavic. It's phonology is Slavic.
It's the most popular constructed language by far, with hundreds of books, songs and podcasts. It's speaker base might be as high as 2 million.
Esperanto is definitely easy, but it is still a language. You can teach the basic grammar in a few hours, but all of the nuances take much longer to learn and internalize. Don't listen to the propaganda about learning it in X days - while people who have the right language backgrounds can make great progress in a short time, for most people it's still a whole new language with its own quirks, vocabulary, etc. that all take time to fully grasp.
There are many "child" languages of Esperanto, but most of them were stillborn. The main one is Ido, which uses more French-derived vocabulary, and has strict principles of one-word-one-meaning, and easy reversal in word building. Overall, Esperanto and Ido are comparable in difficulty, but Esperanto had more speakers and resources so I would tend to encourage it over Ido.
If you're interested in learning it, these are good resources:
- Duolingo
- 12 Day Course: Teaches the 500 most common words, and basic grammar.
- En-Eo Dictionary: Two way dictionary, you can also find free dictionary apps on app stores.
Saluton!
For a fresh beginner, I would probably recommend lernu.net. They have structured lessons for free. Youtube has a bunch of good introductory videos as well. Duolingo has a course, but's pretty much vocab building, which is important but not enough on its own, in my opinion.
Then, if you are still interested, a good book with sample dialogs or short stories would be helpful. Not sure where you are or whether you are willing to spend money, so tough to make hard recommendations.
Do you have a firm grasp of the accusitive and subjects vs objects? It works the same way. If the thing being described by the participle is doing the action (would be the subject of the sentence) it is an active participle. If the thing being described is being acted on (would be the object of the sentence) it is a passive participle.
Here are the Duolingo lessons for this:
Active: https://www.duolingo.com/skill/eo/Participles-1/tips-and-notes
Mi estis leganta la libron. I was reading the book.
Passive: https://www.duolingo.com/skill/eo/Participles2/tips-and-notes
La libro estis legata. The book was being read.
In both examples, someone is doing the reading (presumably me in both cases) and the book is not doing the reading. The reader is the subject, the book is the object. When describing the subject, use the active participle, when describing the object use the passive participle.
Edit in response to your edit:
After you figure out what you are describing (active vs passive) you can choose the tense (complete, in progress, not started).
estos leganta: will be reading
estis leganta: was reading
estas leginta: am finished reading
estis leginta: was finished reading
estos leginta: will have finished reading
estas legonta: am going to be reading
estis legonta: was going to be reading
estos legonta: will be about to be reading (most likely translation)
pls watch the video because its more helpful than me (im not fluent enough and also am dont fully understand the grammar). also i only know about that english concept because of an old meme, i dont think many native speakers pick up on that either way lol.
Reta Vortaro is pretty good. Lots of language options, and you can search english words. The Android app PReVo also uses its database and is my go-to on mobile
Saluton. I'm a beginner myself, but I'm using Anki, an open source spaced repetition flashcard software. You can find shared Esperanto decks. You can also create your own deck.
As a non-native English speaker, I'd say this kind of software is best if you only want to just memorize vocabularies. There are no specialized softwares for Esperanto, so I found a customizable one.
Another lesson from leaning English is the importance of word formation (productive morphology). That is to learn roots & affixes and how to form new words. It was of great help when I studied for GRE. It will probably work better for Esperanto because of its regularity.
These two ways are somewhat orthogonal to each other, so you can do both at the same time.
https://lernu.net/en/gramatiko/verboj
You could use ankidecks like this one. Lots of verbs are similar to both French and English, so should be easy to remember.
Also, some people prefer to learn correlatives like other vocabulary, word by word. I preferred learning the system to derive which one i needed, and practice that until they were second nature. Here's how lernu.net explains them
https://lernu.net/en/gramatiko/tabelvortoj
And here's wikipedia showing it as a chart, which i found helpful
https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Esperanto/Appendix/Table_of_correlatives
Here’s a link to Lernu! Which is basically a free interactive text book. It’s great for learning all the grammar that Duolingo doesn’t teach.
Accusative page: https://lernu.net/en/gramatiko/akuzativo
A very, very simple book you might be able to read. Like a basic Esperanto learning book such as these.
Other than that, no. You won't be able to read a book in any language after just a week of study.
Personally, I really enjoyed the Duolingo course. Some people prefer lernu.net over that. (Of course, you can also do both.)
If you are looking for a physical book, don't forget to check you local library. Mine had a copy of David Richardson's "Esperanto: Learning and Using the International Language." At the very least, it's not uncommon for your library to be able to borrow a coursebook from another library.
I like using the Glosbe dictionary because it gives examples.
Mi ŝatas uzi la vortaron de Glosbe ĉar ĝin donas ekzemplojn.
"La iama hotelo Portinari je Garenmarkt 15 estas nomita laŭ Tommaso Portinari, la bruĝa administranto de la florenca Loggia de Medici en la 15-a jarcento."
The free app is very helpful too!
There's also a very good dictionary at https://lernu.net/en/vortaro, home of the second most recognized on-line learning platform for Esperanto. When your vocabulary is buffed up, check out https://vortaro.net for an "illustrated" Esperanto dictionary (in Esperanto).
I second suggestions for using Gboard for the Esperanto letters, and there are also options for your preferred computer operating systems. Check out the Esperanto discussion board on Duolingo for more details.
IMO this is a valid question to ask, especially with your explanation and screenshot. As a beginner things can be very overwhelming and 'obvious' 'simple' things can totally throw you off. You did get it right, congrats!
Are you only doing the course at lernu.net? (just asking, not judging 😉)
I second this, start with Duolingo and work your way through the tree. When you've completed the course find a second resource to firm things up and fill in any gaps in understanding.
Lernu is a good next stop, from what I've read. But, I would also recommend the book Complete Esperanto by Tim Owen. The book is geared towards preparing Esperanto learners for the KER (CEFR) Esperanto language fluency test.
Duolingo has been great. In my opinion, the Esperanto course is the perfect introduction to the language. To master grammar, however, you should use something like lernu.net, a good book, or a tutor. I still need to do that part, myself. I'm probably going to start just going with 1-on-1 lessons on iTalki. That should help my listening ear and conversational skills.
But again, Duolingo's Esperanto course is a wonderful tool in your tool belt.
>Hey you should look up the acustive
>
>and how the acustive isn't only an acustive
>
>an acustive only tells you the object of the sentence
>
>the esperanto -n tells you the acustive and more
>
>
>
> https://lernu.net/en/gramatiko/akuzativo
Lernu.net is a great source of reading materials for beginners
https://lernu.net/en/biblioteko
And one of the most famous beginner novels is Gerda Malaperis. It starts at a very simple beginner level, and the writing slowly gets more sophisticated as you get further in the story
Duolingo es a pretty good supplemental resource, good for practice, review, vocab building, etc.
But if it's one's only source, Duolingo's approach kind of negates one of Esperanto's chief advantages when it comes to learning the language -- namely, that Esperanto is a created language, with a carefully worked-out regular logical structure.
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On the internet you can find an excellent, more "traditional" structured approach at lernu.net , and most introductory books will also give very helpful perspective (overview) on the internal logic of Esperanto's grammar and how the language works.
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(This is not a knock against Duolingo -- most languages are distinctly irregular, and the apparent structure and regularities are frequently inconsistent and can trip the student up more than they help -- which is one of the biggest things that makes learning a language difficult, and one of the reasons that Duolingo's gamified approach is often so helpful. It's just that most people would be better off not making Duolingo their main / only resource.)
no problem. My advice is watch those videos everyday at least 30 minutes a day or 3-4 videos a day. Only use Esperanto subtitles and never use the English subs. If you have to only use the English subtitles to check to see if you understood what he said after. And search up words you don't know and thats it. You want to over time be able to watch him without subs and be able to mostly understand him. It will still take a little while to understand what he is saying at full speed but that is fine. Your brain needs time to adjust.
Other than that I would recommend you read Esperanto short stories as well. This book is really good and it has the Esperanto and English translation side by side when you don't understand something.
Honestly if you do those two things you can achieve a very proficient level in esperanto in a reasonable time frame.