Check out Lernu!
It's a more traditional, structured introduction to Esperanto -- "a series of lessons" rather than " a sequence of games" -- and it makes a very good complement or follow-up to the Duolingo introduction.
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.
Unu el la plej helpemaj oferoj de la antauxa Lernu.net estis lingvohelpantoj. Oni povis sendi demandojn aux petojn pri klarigo al pli spertaj Esperantistoj post cxiu leciono. Tion ili forigis dum la ĝisdatigo, sed nun ni havas Redditon por demandoj, dankinde.
While Latin was/is great and in some aspects better than Esperanto, in my opinion, it was/is overly complicated for everyday usage. Zamenhof simplified Latin, mixed it with some other languages, added a simple and very logical grammar system and created a logical Lego like language which is quite nice. Maybe not the prettiest language, but definitely not the ugliest. I would suggest everybody to download duo lingo app (or try the web version) and start the Esperanto course - it's fun (and I have finished it today). From the beginning I was mixed but after a while I can say that I quite like Esperanto now. There will never be a perfect language, never. There will always be "but" and "why not like this" etc. However, Esperanto is here and it's a nice, logical and good sounding language and I will definitely continue studying it and reading Esperanto literature. It's especially good language for kids, for example, the logic of number creation and ability to create new words just by using different affixes - that's great for the mental development of children. I would suggest everybody who has a little kid to teach him/her Esperanto. Check the numbers section in Esperanto grammar https://lernu.net/en/gramatiko/nombraj_vortoj and see for yourself how intuitive and logical it is when compared with English.
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:
>I've heard that Klingon is more popular.
Klingon has maybe a dozen fluent speakers as of 1996 (not counting Sheldon Cooper and his buddies). Wikipedia
Esperanto has ~2,000 native speakers and hundreds of thousands at L2 proficiency. Wikipedia
>That's almost certainly a myth, but it shows how little respect Americans have for Esperanto.
Not all of us are Pat Olivieri. (“When ordering, please speak English.”)
>After all, most of us grew up speaking English, which functions pretty well as a common language worldwide. So we don't have a lot of incentive to learn Esperanto.
Maybe not for business and commerce, but it's good for tourism.
>That being said, your inquiry led me to do a little research, and I see that Esperanto is gaining new life on the internet. Maybe it would be a fun hobby, and a way to talk with people in other countries.
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.
I found links in your comment that were not hyperlinked:
I did the honors for you.
^delete ^| ^information ^| ^<3
I would go for lernu! and Learn Esperanto. I don't like Duolingo courses, because they have too many unimportant sentences and are focused more on third person structuers (he did this, she did that etc. it's not a problem in Esperanto, though). I remember the Esperanto course had kinda "I don't have a father, but two mothers" sentence, which is ridiculous. I started with Lernu back in 2015, when there was no Duolingo course, and was brilliant. (That's my opinion. Opinions are subjective. Feel free to dis/agree with me).
>Vi estas almeti a via memiko en ameribreĥo (?)
A couple of other threads (1, 2) were also perplexed by this. Assuming that the voice actor thought that <j> was pronounced Spanish-style like "ĥ", I think that what they were trying to pronounce (still ungrammatically) was
> Mi estas almeti la via amiko en la malliberejo.
I am to put your friend in prison.
Actually grammatical, and maybe even dramatic, ways of expressing that sentiment would be:
>I just don't see Esperanto catching on. And at this time what would be the point?
It was created in the hope (literally; Esperanto translates to “hopeful”) that it would be used as an easy-to-use common language for the whole world.
>Just to prevent native English speakers from having a leg up on the rest of the world?
Not really. Esperanto is easier to learn than English, and it's especially useful in diplomatic situations. I'm not disparaging the use and utility of English, but there are a lot of little differences among dialects that bug me. Esperanto doesn't have that AFAIK.
>Maybe I'm missing a bigger point, is Esperanto supposed to be easier to learn/use?
It can't be that hard if William Shatner can do it. Besides that there are websites such as <em>Lernu!</em> for those interested.
So ‘esti’ means ‘to be’, ‘havi’ means ‘to have’
‘Estas’ means being, ‘havi’ means ‘having’.
‘Estis’ means ‘was’, ‘havis’ means ‘had’
‘Estos’ means ‘will be’, ‘havos’ means ‘will have’.
‘Tablo’ for table, ‘trajno’ for train.
‘Ruĝa tablo’ means ‘a red table’, ‘rapida trajno’ mean ‘a fast train.
Put a-words before nouns.
‘Rapide’ means quickly, ‘normale’ means normally.
You can read more here! https://lernu.net/en/gramatiko
Saluton! Gxi estas mia unua afisxo cxi tie.
Gxi estas nur simpla demando:
Kiam mi lernis esperanto en lernu.net, ili skribis cxi tie: "Kio estas la prezidanto de Usono?", kaj la respondo estis "La prezidanto estas Obama".
Gxi estas malgxusta, cxu ne? Gxi devus esti "Kiu estas la prezidanto?", cxu ne?
Don't feel bad for forgetting words. It happens all the time. https://lernu.net/en/vortaro = your best friend. A tip when learning words: try to make a connection when you can. For example, when I learned ĉevalo, I thought it sounded nothing like horse. But then I realized it is like cavalier, or the French cheval. Likewise, the Esperanto pano is like French pain or Japanese pan. This mostly applies to nouns and verbs.
Lernu.net is an excellent source for grammar and vocabulary. I would start here. The forums are great too for news and beginner tips.
Listen and listen and read and read. Evildea is a Youtube channel with a ton of Esperanto content, and the videos have Esperanto subtitles, so you can listen and read at the same time, attaching the sounds to the spellings. Put it at 0.5x speed if it's too fast. As for reading there's tons of it out there, like the lernu forums or Vikipedio.
Learning a language is difficult period, so don't get discouraged. It gets easier. As with any language, it becomes more and more familiar until it becomes normal. The first phase of familiarization is the hardest.
As someone with an ora strigo (golden owl; completed the Esperanto duolingo course), I do not recommend Duolingo because it forces you to think through English so much of the time. But you should try it out and decide for yourself.
Only 10 minutes a day will add up quickly thanks to Esperanto's nice grammar and vocabulary, but consistency is absolutely key. Do not miss a day, even if you only learn 1 word or read 1 sentence or practice speaking out loud 1 sentence, something is more than nothing.
Try to have conversations with yourself in Esperanto. This will reveal words you want to know and don't know. When you feel ready, use Discord and join an Esperanto channel to chat with fellow Esperantists and practice real time speaking and listening.
Mi certas, ke Esperanto estas utila. Unue, Esperanto, miaopinie, estas la plej modifebla lingvo. Esperanto bazas je logikeco kaj ĉia parolmaniero estas komprenata dum oni sekvas tiun ĉi principon de logikeco. Ekzemple, komoj. Esperanto ne havas striktajn leĝojn pri komoj kaj oni povas uzi ilin laŭ sia komprenado de neceseco. Ankaŭ la lingvo disponigas multegon da sufiksoj, permesas kunigon de radikoj (ekzemple, en la vorto "vaporŝipo" ekzistas du radikojn), kaj eĉ permesas preskaŭ tute forigi "esti" per vortoj faritaj de adjektivoj: "Ĝi estas ruĝa -> ĝi ruĝas". Esperanto estas grandega kampo por eksperimentoj kaj, miaopinie, estas la plej bona lingvo por kreemeco. Nombro de ĝiaj uzomanieroj estas senfina.
Mi ankaŭ certas, ke Esperanto estas lingvo, kiu donas al oni komprenadon de tio, kiamaniere naturaj lingvoj laboras. Kaj, ŝajnas al mi, ke post ĝia studado iĝas pli malfacile ellerni novajn lingvojn. Mi multe komprenis, kiam mi lernis ĝin.
Mi lernis Esperanton per Lernu! retejo (https://lernu.net/ru), sed la plej grava parto de mia studado estis kiam mi komencis uzi Esperanton en la komunuma malgrandega verkprojekto pri unu fantazia mondo. Mi nur priparolis miajn ideojn kun alia studanto de Esperanto kaj komencis uzi Esperanton en mia verkado.
Gerda malaperis is a novel written for learners, the first chapters are very simple and it gets progressively more complicated. You can read it on Lernu with audio recordings.
Mi ŝtelu la 18-literan vorton <em>biomalkomponebleco</em> de la forumano Miland.
>Looking at my own notebook I made up biomalkomponebleco ("biodegradability") which has 18 letters. To be honest, in my view we would be more likely to use the plain adjective biomalkomponebla ("biodegradable"), which has 16 letters. On the other hand, we might hope to find biomalkomponeblaĵoj, which has 19 letters.
Ĉi tie vi trovos liston de ĉiuj tabelvortoj en Esperanto. Do la tuto de tiuj, kiuj komenciĝas per k, estas: kiu(jn), kio(jn), kia(jn), kies, kie(n), kiam, kial, kiel, kiom(aj). Inter "demandaj vortoj" verŝajne troviĝas ankaŭ ĉu.
Ja estas multaj, sed ĉar ili estas tre oftaj, vi senprobleme lernos ilin per sufiĉa legado kaj aŭskultado.
lernu.net and duolingo.com are best resources to learn Esperanto AFAIK. You can buy some books like "Teach Yourself Complete Esperanto (you can find it on Amazon)" but you can learn and be fluent and proficient in Esperanto without spending a penny. So it's all on you, if you would like to spend some money or not. As for conversation, we could practice together. Just PM me.
There is some misinformation here and it really makes me wonder if you actually speak Esperanto fluently or know a variety of Esperanto speakers or have ever been to the UK.
Esperanto is easier than Romance languages for native speakers of Mandarin and Japanese. This is silly to question. Talk to Esperanto speakers in China and Japan (你能说怎么大胆的话、你肯定已经去过中国、已经认识学过世界语和法语的中国人 ... surely?). The phonemic vocabulary of Esperanto is objectively smaller than, say, French, and there's absolutely zero irregular verbs in Esperanto. It takes maybe 5 minutes to learn verbs in Esperanto but 5 months for a Romance language. The equivalent of a subjunctive sort of exists in Esperanto, but barely. Et cetera
Here, read the actual experiences of Chinese and Japanese people:
https://lernu.net/hu/forumo/temo/27069
https://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1022697960
https://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q11115216541
Other accounts can be easily Googled.
"very little native culture" eh... maybe... maybe not... few movies yes, but tons of books including original novels
Now that you mention its actual meaning, I think the Russian phrase is closer to the Esperanto one, "mi ne kontraŭas" (usage example 1, example 2). It's better to think about "what do I actually want to convey? what does the other person need to understand?" Usually you have to deconstruct the phrase in your first language into its bare purpose.
If I didn't know that exact phrase and someone asks me if I'm okay with what they're doing, I could just say "bonvolu!" or "gxi ne estas problemo". Like any language, you kinda have to pay attention to how people use words in which situation (basically, pragmatics).
I'm not sure if Duolingo is really treated as the primary method. Especially for non-English speakers, I see often Lernu, and also learn.esperanto.com (available in 20+ languages) ranks 1st and 2nd in various Google searches.
This thread has a few suggestions from the Polish word that got translated as "Witcher" in English:
I'm level 9 on Duolingo as well, and I'm finding it really helpful to do the course at lernu.net in parallel with it. So far they seem to complement each other and make up for each other's shortcomings; Duolingo is better for practice, but Lernu seems to be better for understanding how the language works and getting you to think in Esperanto (instead of just translating all the time). There's also a grammar reference section there that might help even if you don't do the course.
It's true. It's another way to talk about the state of something.
In this case, mi dormas is the same as mi estas dormanta. However, it's different if you change tenses. eg. Mi estis dormanta = i was sleeping, mi estos dormanta = I will be sleeping
I'm still wrapping my head around it, but here's a page describing the grammar involved: https://lernu.net/en/gramatiko/participoj
Easiest get-the-job-done dict: https://lernu.net/en/vortaro
It’s my go to if I can’t find something in PosxReVo, the iOS esperanto dictionary app.
Also good but a bit less easy to use: http://www.reta-vortaro.de/revo/
Big list of dictionaries:
https://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperantaj_vortaroj_en_la_reto
There's a sequence of courses, and I wanted to make sure that you hadn't stumbled on an intermediate course without doing a beginner course like La teorio Nakamura.
I haven't used Lernu! since they fully revamped the site, so I don't know how all the new courses work. This forum thread says you can go to the Media Library and change "All Category" in "Esperanto learning materials" to try other materials.
It was a long time ago, but I guess I spent a few hours a week on it. I used Lernu! (before it was rebuilt, but the new course looks good too) and a course for French speakers, and then I chatted with people online.
I'm currently learning Esperanto (because I don't want to just be fluent in English unlike a lot of Brits and Americans) and I'm learning off of lernu.net and revising with Anki.
I'm wondering how I can ensure that I can become or maintain fluency to the level I've learned Esperanto (right now feeling a little bit stressed about how I can't say numbers quickly and how I forget some words) and also ensure that I'm not "cramming", so to speak. I'm conscious of the fact too that I'm gonna be getting a full-time job so I won't have all the time in the world as I want to also try and move out.
Not really willing to use Duolingo as the mobile app sucks even though Esperanto's grammar is quite simple to grasp. Don't want to use physical flash cards too as they take up too much space. I wonder what you can advise as someone who isn't really doing this so much for fun, but more to like scratch an itch or something.
I've noticed with some of duolingo's courses they include tips which describe grammar rules well; however, with Esperanto they seem not to have that feature. So what I'm currently doing is using duolingo with https://lernu.net/en/gramatiko
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.
يعني تخصص حضرتك لغوي بحت. أصل أنا قابلت أشخاص قبل كدا على الإنترنت من أطراف الكوكب بيدرسوا لغة عربية لغرض تاني سواء سياسة، تاريخ أو دراسات دينية.
والكلام الحلو إللي على مصر دا لإني مصري ولَّا علشان البلد عجبتك؟ D= على أي حال أنا واثق من إنك سمعت "الصينيين أحسن ناس" قبل كدا من ناس مصريين D=
بالنسبة للإسبرانتو أصل أنا السنة إللي فاتت قررت بعد سنين من التكاسل (أو علوقية بالمصري) إني أتعلم إسبرانتو ولقيت إن ليها تاريخ طويل في الصين وأشخاص كتير من متحدثيها من الصين وأغلبية أعضاء موقغ lernu.net من الصين فكان عندي فضول بإعتبار إن حضرتك عندك ميول لغوية تكون على علم بيها، بس أختلف في إنها مواجهة للإنقراض لإنها أولاً أكتر اللغات المصطنعة من حيث عدد المتحدثين بيتكلمها 5 مليون وفي زيادة مستمرة. ممكن زي مأنا قولت إن عدد سكان الصين كبير ومتنوع فممكن إنها تكون مغمورة وسطهم.
بس أمانة عليك لما الصين تسيطر على العالم وتكون الماندرين هى لغة العالم بدل الإنجليزية تاخد بإيدنا واحدة واحدة علشان في نغمات وحوارات وكلام كبير D=
على العموم فرصة سعيدة وبالتوفيق في حياتك المهنية.
>Does anyone have any advice or material to help me progress?
I'm working through the course on Lernu.net right now, and it's quite good. (And free!) (Although the beginning might be a bit boring for you, since you already know some Esperanto.)
I also recommend picking up copies of Gerda Malaperis by Claude Piron and Esperanto: Learning and Using the International Language by David Richardson. Gerda Malaperis is an Esperanto classic, and the story is written as a tool for teaching Esperanto.
Jes, fakte, mi trovis bonegajn rimedojn por lerni plurajn lingvojn esperante: https://lernu.net/eo/teamo
Rigardu “Partneraj projektoj” - vi povas lerni la germanan, la slovakan, la cxehxan, la rusan. Mi atendas ke ciuj estos konataj kaj komfortaj por vi se vi antauxe uzis la retejon Lernu.
Bonega demando, mi interesigxas ankaux. Bonsxancon!
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
Cool, looking forward to reading your next translation!
I learned Esperanto on Lernu a long time ago.
The best way to get good at Esperanto is to use it. Talk to people (in person if you're able). Listen to radio and podcasts. Read texts – not just on forums, but also in published form, like magazine articles and books, so you know they're correct and in good style. You can find high quality reading material for all skill levels. Duolingo is pretty good, but not enough. You'll eventually get a feel for it.
There is a Duolingo course for Esperanto, which is how I learned. The site lernu.net also has a widely-used course, but I've never tried it.
Really, the grammar is straightforward enough that using Duolingo plus a little googling here and there will get you pretty far.
Lernu! https://lernu.net/en
If I had to choose between Lernu and Duolingo, I'd choose Lernu. Duolingo is an excellent, gamified resource and vocab builder, but Lernu will generally provide a better, clearer overview of the grammar and the structure/logic the grammar is built on.
You can pick up vocab anywhere. Good explanations of why you say what generally matter more, for actually acquiring and mastering the language and developing fluency.
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
By far the best English to Esperanto dictionary online is this one. Lernu also has a good online dictionary.
For apps, any of the many ReVo clones is probably good. Just search "ReVo" or "Reta Vortaro" and you're bound to find one.
This one might not be useful until you're a little more advanced, but try checking out IOREL. It's a monolingual Esperanto dictionary, but the definitions are all in simple language.
The thing about Esperanto was that it was designed to be learned easily. Significantly more easily than Spanish. Once you start, you get hooked, kinda. But I don't know much of it. I know the catchphrase "Esperanto kaj facile" (Esperanto is easy) [J is pronounced Y/I]. I also remember "La birdo" (The bird), "La Birdon" (The [object] bird), "La Birdoj" (The birds), "La Birdojn" (The [object] birds). Pretty simple, really.
The reason why the object of the sentence has it's own conjugation is so that you can use it with any verb order you like. So, you could be coming from an Subject-Verb-Object language (English), or a Verb-Subject-Object language (Hebrew), or a Subject-Object-Verb language (German). It doesn't matter the order you put it in your sentence, what matters is the noun you mark with the "n." That becomes the object.
So people who are coming from different subject, object, verb order languages can feel at home using the order they're used to. It may sound different to an Esperanto speaker coming from a different language, but it will be easily intelligible.
I found some resources that might work for you: * https://learn.esperanto.com/en/ * https://lernu.net/en * http://www.kurso.com.br/index.php?en
If you decide to pursue it, I will 100% join you. Seriously. I could use a challenge, and something to distract me at times. We could keep up with each other.
No pressure. Oh, and if you want to learn Japanese, I might join you in that, as well. It's been on my mind (well, the back of my mind) for some time.
Cheers!
I'm not so keen on the duolingo course -- but learning styles differ; if it works for you, use it. I would definitely recommend using it in parallel with Lernu.net, to benefit from a more clearly organised/presented overview.
​
There's some good YouTube channels. Besides Evildea, I would sugest Esperanto Variety Show (Tomaso) and Alex Millers channel. I personally also like Oliver Rakontas. Tastes differ but at least these are regular posters who actually know what they're doing.
Some people also recommend the Mazi en Gondolando animated instructional series.
Yep - the question was "What materials and textbooks are you using?" :)
Take a look at Lernu - I liked some of their older classes better (some even had live tutors checking your work) but they have some interesting things in the current one as well (and there are some materials in the Media Library that are pretty useful for a beginner - they converted some of the older classes to audio + text only (no exercises) but between the audio and the dictionary, they are still useful). And their grammar is one of the better things available in English (and once you get the hang of the language, switching to PMEG is easy).
Vikipedio: Mi estas provanta plibonigi la Satanajn pagxojn de la Esperanta Vikipedio, sed bedauxrinde ili cxiuj estas sxildigitaj kaj ajnaj sxangxoj faritaj de mi bezonas esti kontrolita de iu kiun konsideras fidinda la sistemo de Vikipedio. Do, malgxojoe mi estas atendanta de iu, ie por ke mi povas dauxrigi mian skribadon.
Hieraux mi finis la kurson de Esperanto de Duolingo. Hura por mi! Sed, la Duolinga kurso ne esta la fina vocxo pri lerni Esperanton, do mi estas komencinta la kurson de Esperanto laux la Nakamura teorio cxe Lernu.net. Cxiam antauxe, cxe ne?
En aliaj sferoj de mia vivo, mi estas ekzercanta la cxinan ekzercon Kigong: https://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/&#37;C4&#37;88igongo Mi ne certas pri la ekzisto de ia energio aux anima eco, sed mi ja certas prio tio ke mi sentas min pli bona pro la ekzercado de cxigongo. Mi ankaux ekzercas cxigongon cxar post ol mia kuracisto faris al mi antaux du jaroj procedon por haltigi la movadon de semo for de mia korpo dum seksumadi (angle la procedo nomigxas "vasectomy"), mi ne plu povas fari preskaux ion ajn sendolore. Kuri, salti, kaj ecxi promeni cxiuj kauzas al mi doloron. Sxajnas ke stari kaj movi min milde estas la plej bona elekto por ne igxi korpulenta amaso! En la venontajn 4-6 montaojn mi konsultos la plej spertan kuraciston en Kanado pri cxi tia speco de doloro en la la urbo Toronto, sed gxis tiam mi devas elpensi kiel eble plej sagxe navigi cxirkaux la problemon.
Bone! I've only learned a little bit here and there for a year on Duolingo. Also I remembered, https://lernu.net/en is also an amazing source to learn it! It has more interactive and in-depth ways of introducing the language.
Ĉi tie estas du aŭtoritata fontoj de informo de matimatikaj esprimoj:
Ili kongruas ke:
"=" povas esti: "faras", "estas", aŭ "egalas"
"4 + 2" povas esti: "kvar plus du" aŭ "kvar kaj du"
"4 - 2" estas "kvar minus du"
"4 * 2" povas esti: "kvar multiplikite per du", "kvaroble du", aŭ "kvar oble du"
"4 / 2" estas "kvar dividite du"
Elrigardu?
Kie oni rajtas lerni pri la uzo de "el" kiel gxi uzatas tie cxi? Kion mi ajne legis estas ke "el" signifas "movo for de interno al ekstero:" https://lernu.net/eo/gramatiko/direktaj_prepozicioj
It's a matter of grammar, which is a bit different to English (but thankfully completely regular): Ilia translates to their, the j makes it plural, and the -n ending makes it a direct object of the sentence.
I learned Esperanto online on duolingo, there is also a course on lernu.net, both free. If you look for them, there are also good old language learning books for Esperanto. And if you're lucky, there is an Esperanto club in your city offering courses.
If you're fascinated, have a look. It's surprisingly easy learn, and that comes from somebody who normally sucks at languages.
Yes.
If you want an app (like a cellphone app), you have Duolingo. It has Esperanto for English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French speakers. (A course for Chinese speakers is supposed to come out at some point too).
There are several other apps besides Duolingo, like Memrise, that have Espearnto courses. I don't know how good they are, Duolingo is pretty solid.
Besides apps, there are online courses also, which might be better, depending on who you ask.
Lernu, besides having a good course is also good for its grammar reference.
There's also https://learn.esperanto.com/en/ which many people recommend.
There are also other resouces, like books and youtube channels.
Esperanto is really helpful if you want to learn other European languages (especially Romance languages) because it shares a lot of vocabulary, and it is a good first language to learn because the grammar is very simple. I definitely recommend it! I don’t speak Esperanto very well, but I’ve written several papers and done presentation on it, so if you have questions I may be able to help! My DM’s are open!
Also, check out Lernu! They have a free course, grammar, and dictionary that are really helpful!
Lots of misconceptions in this post.
Esperanto grammar is very regular and does away with a lot of the surface level complexities you find in other languages such as irregular verbs, declensions, noun classes etc. This does not mean that the grammar is simple, only that you can avoid the burden of a lot of the memorisation that other languages require you to know before moving onto the more complex aspects of the grammar.
You absolutely do not carry over things like 'the correct preposition use from the language you already know'.
Lernu! has a nice summary of esperanto grammer. If you really want to 'quench your thirst for grammar' the Plena Manlibro de Esperanta Gramatiko (Complete Manual of Esperanto Grammar) will keep you busy for some years !
Esperanto: Learning and Using the International Language de David Richardson plej plaĉas al mi. Mi ankaŭ ŝatas PReVo. Ĝi estas vortaro; tamen, la ŝerĉilo uzas nur Esperanto. Lernu.net havas vortaron por Esperanto -> Angla / Angla -> Esperanto kaj aliaj lingvoj.
Feliĉa lernado!
I use Duolingo, but I've not finished it. I go back to it every now and again, but I also use other tools/sites. There's a good course for example on Lernu.net (https://lernu.net/eo/kurso) that goes deeper on grammar etc. (Also if you use Duolingo, be sure to check out the web version where you can easily access more detailed notes and discussions on a given lesson).
Out of curiosity, are you using the Esperanto course for English speakers or the Esperanto course for Spanish speakers? I have no suggestion here (I don't speak Spanish), but - anecdotally - I have heard some (Spanish speaking or learning / but native English speaking) Duolingo users say that using the version for Spanish speakers helped them.
If you are looking for a more complete grammatical explanations than the notes in Duolingo (which I still believe you have to use the web version to access and which are actually pretty good), Lernu! has a comprehensive summary.
And it has one of the most interesting grammatical text books of any language I have studied - Plena Manlibro de Esperanta Gramatiko. If you are looking for a brief summary of the grammar you can find one here in English (and 35 other languages).
I would say you don't have to "memorise"anything. Just learn the language. You will learn how each letter is pronounced by learning the language.
The only reason for why someone would want to return to the alphabet is perfect their pronunciation. I think Lernu! has all the information you would want to know about the pronunciations.
From a linguistic point of view, you also have Wikipedia.
According to Esperanto phonology, the r sound is the voiced alveolar trill [r]. Zamenhof did not explicitly define a standard pronunciation in detail. Nevertheless, a detailed pronunciation norm naturally emerged as Esperanto became a language used in speech for international communication.
The sound is normally dental, but it does not matter too much where in the mouth you make the sound. The important thing about the r sound is that it must be a vibrant, but different r sounds are used by speakers and most of them are accepted without any bigger issue.
You can listen to the r sound as a mp3 file here and do the same for the rest of the letters at this page on Lernu! or on Wikipedia.
No. By accounting an action, we actually have two time points to be specified. The time of the accounting and the time of the action. est* specifies the accounting time and *nta specifies the action time relative to the accounting time.
Let's say the accounting time is 7:00.
If now is 7:00, and he is going to drink the water at 7:15. Then Li estas trinkonta la akvon.
If now is 8:00, and the thing I want you to know is that at 7:00, he planned to drink the water at 7:15. Since 7:15 is a future relative to 7:00, so it's trinkonta. But the accounting time 7:00 is a past for us at 8:00 now, so it's estis. Together we have Li estis trinkonta la akvon.
Read more at lernu.
Mi uzis notkartojn por lerni vortojn kaj mi multege auxskultis evildea en jutubo. Mi ankaux kreis lernu.net konton kaj mi uzas tion por legi afisxojn kaj gramatikon. Vikipedio ankaux estas bona legekzercado. Sed mi cxefe uzis notkartojn por vortprovizo kaj poste uzis la kanalon de evildea por kompreni la vortojn kiujn mi jxus lernis. PMEG kaj PIV estas bonaj rimedoj kiam vi plispertigxos
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I used notecards to learn words and I listened to evildea in youtube a lot. I also made a lernu.net account and I use that to read posts and and read about grammar. Wikipedia also is good for reading. But I mainly used notecards to learn vocabulary and afterwards i used the evildea's channel to understand what I just learned. PMEG and PIV are good resources when you become more experienced.
EDIT you can also find people to speak with in person using the amikumu app
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.
I found links in your comment that were not hyperlinked:
I did the honors for you.
^delete ^| ^information ^| ^<3
1: Duolingo has a good course and there is a site called lernu! that is free and easy to use.
I would personally recommend this memrise course. It helped me a lot with the really base words that come up in almost every sentence.
2: Online the community is big enough to find a person to talk to whenever you want. This subreddits discord always has people to talk to. Offline is harder (especially so now) but there are groups in every state and conferences every year except for this one.
Yep, I'm learning mandarin but not for work or money and I barely travel so I really won't use it much even though its a super useful language. The difference is that esperanto is a super easy to learn language. It takes like 2k study hours for the average English user to get to fluency in mandarin, 1.2k for non english users to learn english, 600 for an english user to learn Spanish .... but esperanto is supposed to be somewhere around the 200 hour range because it's highly regular.
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It is actually VERY commonly used as a stepping stone language for language learners because it speeds up language acquisition (google how europe and britain were teaching school children EO to help them understand their own language better and pick up a 3rd language faster). Between how fast you can learn it, and this, that alone should shut up any reasonable naysayers.
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I was listening to youtube vids while taking my dog on long walks during lockdown at night, using duolingo, and lernu.net in conjunction and in about 3 weeks had SURPASSED my mandarin speaking and listening comprehension that I had been working on for about 11 months at that point. Its scary fast how you will go from defending "I'm learning EO" to "I speak a couple languages already, learning _________ now" because you probably won't stop at 2. Personally, I didn't follow through with EO, but only because I was annoyed with their community's unwillingness to adopt the gender reforms that they've been fighting against for decades... nothing with the actual language itself. Only now, after another 4 months has my mandarin gotten better than my EO... it's almost frustrating how easy it is to pick up.
Kiujn kanalojn vi jam spektas ĉe Youtube? Eble mi aŭ aliulo konas kanalojn pri kiuj vi ne scias.
Ankaŭ mi kredas ke lernu.net estas bona rimedo.
Ĉu vi uzas 'Facebook'? Ekzistas grupo kiu nomiĝas 'Duolingo Esperanto Learners'.
I found links in your comment that were not hyperlinked:
I did the honors for you.
^delete ^| ^information ^| ^<3
I found links in your comment that were not hyperlinked:
I did the honors for you.
^delete ^| ^information ^| ^<3
You can read a brief summary of the grammar of Esperanto here in Spanish (it's only 72% complete, but most of the basics are there):
https://lernu.net/es/gramatiko
Note that in the top right corner you can change the language--try to see if you can understand it in Esperanto after you've gotten a better grasp of it! English is 100% translated, so if there's something you're curious about that isn't yet in Spanish, you can look there.
I found links in your comment that were not hyperlinked:
I did the honors for you.
^delete ^| ^information ^| ^<3
Jes, Duolingo ne estas la pli bona ajxo por lerni lingvoj, sed mi sxatas gxin kaj mi komencis sur gxin, do mi ne volas halti. Tamen, mi uzos lernu.net pli tarda se mi volas, cxar gxi semblas bona. Mia gramatiko ne estas tre bona, sed mi pensas ke mi progresas gramatike kaj mi estis bona kiam mi finisas. Dankon por via komento!
I found links in your comment that were not hyperlinked:
I did the honors for you.
^delete ^| ^information ^| ^<3
Thank you so much for this detailed answer. It was both very educative and enjoyable to read.
Following this comment I read the entire lernu threads on the subject, and it seems likely that as a T-V distinguishing language speaker it feels more natural to me to make that distinction despite the rarity of its use the general community.
Your point that I am integrating a living culture with its own idiosyncrasies was insightful though, and I’ll meditate on that for a while before chosing to use it or not.
By the way, are you certain that ci is supposed to be MORE formal than vi? I saw it described as an intimate vi which matches the french definition « Tu » and the german « du » of the Akademio de Esperanto Couldn’t it be a mixup between the modern formal use of thou in English compared the ancient thou which was more colloquial than you? (stackexchange ref)
I enjoyed Duolingo. It's better to use the online version than the app. And check the extra tips on each lesson. It's been a while since I completed the course, so they added more lessons, but when I did it, I completed in about a month. And it was enough to understand wikipedia and partially videos like Evildea.
Another source some people recommend is lernu.net. A lot of people who learned esperanto before Duolingo did it on lernu.
Unfortunately for me, I stopped using it and forgot a lot of it, although I can still understand a little.
Also, if you want to meet people, after learning the basics, I heard amikumu is good. It was created by esperantists with the goal of joining esperantists together, although it also works for other languages.
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 😉)
Jes mi komencis lerni Esperanton tie. Kaj mi ankaŭ finis ĝin. Post tio mi ankaŭ provis aliaj kursoj sed neniam finis ilin. La nuna Esperanta kurso ja havas pli da enhavo kaj mi ne scias ĉu mi finus ĝin se mi ankoraŭ bezonus ĝin.
Por la Duolingo kurso mi ĉefe lernis pli da vortoj per Memrise kaj Lernu.net. Poste mi ankaŭ provis iom plibonigi je paroli per Ekparolu. Sed post provi ĝin iomete mi ĉesis uzi ĝin ĉar mi jam ofte parolis Esperanton kun amikoj. Ekparolu estis tre utila tamen por homoj kiuj ne havas amikojn kiuj jam tre bone parolas Esperanton.
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.
What is your native language? You might consider the Lernu course which is in 39 languages or http://learn.esperanto.com which is in 24 languages. Duolingo is also in Portuguese and Spanish. Mandarin and French are in preparation. In case any of those are helpful
It also might be worth contacting your national association. Many national associations have produced their own courses in the appropriate languages.
Good luck !
>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
I think, lernu.net is best choise: lots of other people learning the same language that you learn, forums, where you may talk to them, and very obvious tution system (I guess, it must sound like that. Sorry, not native English speaker) based on interactive exerscises.
Depending on your view of what "useful" is, perhaps consider Esperanto? It's a constructed international auxiliary language with millions of speakers worldwide and associations in every country. If you're travelling abroad you can often find somewhere to stay with a local Esperantist if you're an Esperantist too, who can act as a guide and interpreter for you. It's also, relative to most natural languages, very simple to learn. There's a course on Duolingo, another free course on Lernu.net, and national Esperanto associations usually offer incredibly cheap and sometimes even free courses too :)
En effet!
Il y a de réels avantages économiques, en plus de politiques, à propager l'usage de l'espéranto, même si la fina venko (le but ultime, i.e. qu'il devienne un jour la langue seconde universelle) est bien peu probable. Et je peux témoigner de mon expérience personnelle : ça m'a pris quelque 3 mois d'études très laxistes pour arriver à communiquer maladroitement en espéranto (comparé à 6 mois intenses pour l'Italien, 2 ans moyens pour l'espagnol et 5 - 10 ans dans mon enfance pour l'anglais, dans l'ordre inverse d'apprentissage).
C'est anecdotique, mais ça concorde avec ce que m'ont dit les autres espérantophones que j'ai rencontrés.
Si ça t'intéresse d'apprendre (toi ou quiconque lirait ceci), les deux sites les plus efficaces sont Lernu et Duolingo.
Thank you so much for the reply and the resources, i'll definitely check your website
also i wasn't aware about lernu.net. I've been teaching myself through books and youtube videos haha
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
I suggest coupling <em>Lernu!</em> with <em>Duolingo</em> if you're gonna learn online on your own. Lernu! is great for learning grammar and the amazing ways you can create words, while Duolingo makes it easy to practice common phrases in Esperanto.
I use Duo pretty regularly but it's really disjointed. It's fine for practice but it doesn't give you the building blocks in a coherent way.
This page on Lernu! gets pretty in the weeds: https://lernu.net/en/gramatiko/verboj but the 'gramatiko' site is a good reference tool.
When I say building blocks, I really wanted just a list of things like pronouns and tenses. Duo doesn't seem to take the time to just say "-o = noun and -i = infinitive form of a verb". Once you know that, you can start playing with nouns and pick words apart.
Ex: Vidi = "to see", vido = "view", varma = warm, varmi = to warm up, varmo = warmth.
Once you get the structures down, vocab becomes secondary and a loooot easier.
I think about 1/2 way through Duolingo you get the chance to speak sentences but it's not enough. I got lucky and have someone that got me into it and I can speak with them regularly. Soooo I guess drag a buddy into it. :)
Mi estas anka*ŭ komencanto! Mi legas nun la ra rakonto "Kio okazas" de* <em>Lernu.net</em>. Ĝi estas iom malfacila, sed per ĝin legi, mi multajn novajn vortojn lernis.
Ĝi enhavas proksimume 3400 vortojn, kaj ĝin legi estas senkosta :)
Ach, heart eyes.
I think there are a lot of resources out there depending on what you want. Duolingo is kind of bad when it comes to inflection and grammar, and at times seems like it's more about memorization than learning. Drops is useful and has a nice approach, but it's more for casual language learning and a lot of the better features require a subscription. Plus you only get to do it for five minutes at a time. Neither of them are specifically focused on Esperanto either. Lernu is pretty good, although I only did a few lessons on it. It's also a website for only Esperanto. It gives paragraphs and puts things in actual situations. That's what I'd suggest.
There is also an Esperanto Wikipedia at eo.wikipedia.org, but that's more advanced. It's pretty regular: nouns end in o, adjectives end in a, infinitives end in i, and while there is a participle system only the past, present, and future tenses are commonly used. I also kind of stole that concept for my conlang.
Sorry for the... erm... paragraphs again. I just really like Esperanto.
Mi studas frazoj per transparent.com kaj Anki. Mi ne komprenas unu vorto, "pluvad", in ĉi tio frazo: "Ranoj estas ĉie sur la strato post pluvad." Tio signifas, "Frogs are all over the road after it rains."
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Kial ne uzas "pluvado" kial la aliaj frazoj de https://lernu.net/en/gramatiko/sufiksoj?
Saluton!
-os shows things that haven't happened yet, but will. I included that one because we sometimes say things like "Maybe I'll go outside" to mean you actually intend to go outside.
-us shows a possibility, something that might not even happen. It's another possibility here, like if you're going through lunch options.
"Povas, ke..." is a general statement. "It is possible that", like "Estas eble, ke"... If you say "It's possible that I'll eat an apple" it makes sense, but it sounds strange in Esperanto and in English :)
Here's Lernu's page on verbs.
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.)
> Are you sure they don't just refer to something more general than spicy, which may include spicy in some cases?
I can't be sure, but further searching turned up a few more Esperantists giving "pika" as their term for "spicy."
It does make me curious what ground "spica" covers - would it mean "flavored with any kind of spice (including but not limited to hot spices)" and thus include sensations like the coldness of peppermint or menthol?
Nope, definitely a lot harder than Polish, Spanish, French, German, Russian.
Hungarian and Irish might give it a run for its money alright, and Finish and Icelandic are definitely harder to learn, but English is an abnormally difficult language because of its chaotic structure and lack of rules. Most languages have a set way of conjugating verbs and pronouncing things.
There is literally no way whatsoever to read a sentence in English and be able to guess, as a non-native speaker who doesn't know the language, the correct pronunciation of each word because of all the homonyms and random-ass exceptions we have, most languages aren't like that.
I would say tonal Asian languages are probably harder to learn as well, but broadly speaking, no. English is well above-average in terms of learning difficulty.
Ja, vi pravis. (Indeed, you were correct.) If it feels awkward to you, you're free to use the adjectival variant (ja, vi estis prava / indeed, you were correct). The language is flexible and meant to accommodate a speaker's native syntax when possible.
I don't know if this answers your question directly, but I'd strongly recommend A Complete Grammar of Esperanto by Ivy Kellerman Reed in conjunction with the Lernu! course and the Anki flashcard deck to aid your learning, as well as Lang-8 to practice your writing skills. I started just 29 days ago kaj mi jam eklegis La Hobito (and I've already begun reading The Hobbit). I am no kind of linguist or anything but this language just kind of presents itself to you. I studied German for two years and, though I passed the CEFR B2 exam, I can still barely keep up small talk. In Esperanto I'm already communicating better than I can in German.
Vi jam scipovas uzi la akuzativo*n* cxar ankaux la angla lingvo uzas gxi*n* por certaj vortoj, kiel "I -> me, he -> him". La angla nur ne montras gxi*n* tiel regule, kiel Esperanto.
Jen artikolo en Esperanto pri la akuzativo. Jen alia en la angla.
Like /u/etalasi recommended, I would probably start with Duolingo. Duolingo teaches you the grammar and basic vocabulary in a very gamified way and repeats by building upon itself, which is helpful for the initial (and inevitable) stage of memorizing terms.
Lernu on the other hand is more geared towards immersion; its strength is teaching reading and listening comprehension. It's designed such that one can start the audio and read along, hovering over sentences or clicking on individual words to see the translation. You don't need to memorize anything, as long as you understand the gist you should move on, later in every lesson there are grammar lessons and vocab exercises to help reinforce what they show you in the wall of text. Pro-tip though, if you're going to use Lernu as your primary method of instruction, you should definitely check out the writing and pronunciation section so that you can read aloud the passages after hearing the corresponding audio - it'll help cement vocab.
If you have some experience with other languages like French or Spanish, you can probably just jump into Lernu and learn through context. But if you find yourself clicking on every other word to remember what it means, you might want want to start with Duolingo and pair it with Lernu once you start to get the hang of it.
Bonan ŝancon.
> It is not possible to use an apostrophe instead of an A-ending, E-ending or verb ending. Note that it is also not possible to use an apostrophe instead of the endings ON, OJ and OJN. Har' always means haro (hair), never haron, haroj (hairs) or harojn.