I'm french and I really like english, but I think that esperanto is really more interesting.
After 10 years of english learning, I don't have a good english. I've learned esperanto only 4 years, one hour a week, and I really speak it better !
Moreover, esperanto is known for its quality of "propedeutics" (I don't know if this word exists in english in fact ), it means that people who learn esperanto find it easier learning others languages after.
And I really like international esperanto meetings because we can meet people from rusia, ... and it's really easier to speak with them with esperanto than with english for me !
That's all !
If you want to find penpals (in english or esperanto), you can have a lok on my website :
http://www.esperantomondo.net
There are 287 people from 40 countries on it
But excuse me if the english translation isn't very good... the esperanto translation is better
Yep, Esperanto is really beautiful, but, how can you put into a computer a letter "c" with a circunflex over it?!
I hate esperanto! It sounds horrible
Xatufan, you can do this one of two ways: ĉ can be written as "cx" or "ch." And this goes for any of the letters with the circumflex.
ĝ = gh gx
ĥ = hh hx
ĵ = jh jx
ŝ = sh sx
I think "-x" is prefered.
I personally like Esperanto because for me it sounds quite likeable and has a simple and logical grammatical structure. Actually I think it is useful to learn as a second language because as far as pronunciation is concerned, it is easier than English for speakers of most languages.
This said, I still think there is no real chance that it will become an alternative to English for basically two reasons:
1. It is not a native language, therefore even if it can convey all shades of meaning and emotions (many literary works have been translated into Esperanto), hearing or reading it does not make you think of any particular country, nor people. On the other hand, if you hear English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Catalan or any other language, images of a given country or people will come into your mind (real or stereotyped, from this point of view it is the same). In other words, it has not the same emotional associations as do natural languages, which I think is an important source of unconscious motivation which makes most people learn a language. Of course there will be enthusiasts who will profit from learning it, but as I see it, it wil never be universally used. It succeeds too much in being neutral.
2. Even if the above may be a personal opinion, therefore only partly true, I think it is still not associated with the idea of economical (and political) domination which has given English the status of the most widely spoken native or second language. Therefore even it may be more worthwile to learn as a language than English, it will never have those advantages for which people start learning English. Sad but true, I'm afraid.
Sorry, I realised that maybe this was not the right place to place my previous post on, and now I sort of hate myself for being so hopelessly pessimistic. :-) Having been familiar a little with Esperanto, I think this invention of Dr. Zamenhof's does help in sharing common literary heritage because literary works written in most languages translate very well into it, I think the reason for this is that it took the best traits from the grammars of some western languages. Some Hungarian works of literature at least have given better translations into Esperanto than into English. On the other hand, it is a useful means of making friends, albeit Esperantists are a minority in a world dominated by English. So there you have two reasons FOR learning it, too. Idealists of the world, go ahead! :-)
Eastener, your first answer was pretty intelligent...
I think that the c with a circuflex is a sexually exciting symbol.
I love Interlingua!
> Yep, Esperanto is really beautiful, but, how can you put into a computer a letter "c" with a circunflex over it?!
If you have windows, some programs can do it : I think that you can use a program called 'Cxe' (I don't really remember, I'm not sure of the name !)
If you're using linux, you shouldn't have any problem, just have a look at some pages like
http://linuxfr.org/tips/160.html
UTF-8 encoding makes it very easy !
Gxis ! (jes I know, with x it seems very horible ;) )
PS : >I hate esperanto! It sounds horrible
I don't think so, it sounds approximatively like spanish for example (often people say "oh, you are speaking spanish !"), do you hate spanish language too ????? I really like it !
Maxmanweb: ¿De verdad te gusta el español? Bueno, espero que puedas hablarlo, porque si no, no podrías leer esto, ¿no?
I have never heard someone speaking Esperanto. Ever.
No, I don't speak spanish ;) But I've heard people speaking spanish of course ;)
What does your answer means ?
Esperanto estas tre bela lingvo !
<<¿De verdad te gusta el español? Bueno, espero que puedas hablarlo, porque si no, no podrías leer esto, ¿no? >>
In English: <<Do you really like Spanish? Well, I hope you can speak it, because, if you don't, you couldn't read this, could you?>>
Xatufan te pregunta si tu quiero el espanol? Si puedos hablarlo si no, ne es possible para tu de leer esto.
Sorry for my so bad spanish.
Saluton !
Xatufan asked if you were abble to read spanish, if not you can't understand what he wrote.
Esperanto may be academically interesting, but it is useless from a practical standpoint. Study it if you're interested in it for its own sake, but don't assume that it will ever be of any use in the real world. The language has never really gone anywhere, and most likely it never will.
Nic: the text you wrote, was that Spanish?
I understood it, but I thought it was Esperanto.
I love Spanish, but I hate Esperanto.
Hey did you guys know that there's another international language called Slovio which is a hybrid of all Slavic languages and everybody who speaks such a language can understand it? I read a text and understoo everything!