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Le sequente message appareva in le lista Auxlang.  Il es multo importante
in mi opinion proque Mia offere un puncto de vista multo sincer e real.  Le
problema in Auxlang es que como occurre continuemente, si alcun del lista
critica Esperanto il ha multos Esperantoistas que le dice como vermente su
quotiente de Intelligentia es defficiente.  Mia hic tenta dar un senso de
realitate de un puncto de vista de su experientia personal.  Le lection de
Esperanto es un lection que multo del Esperantoistas non vole apprender, si
nos Interlinguanos vole advantiar le causa del Interlingua nos facerea ben
apprender iste lection alsi.  Si alcun necessita clarification in
Interlingua del texto original io pote traducer alco de ille pro vos.
Sincermente,
Jay B.
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> de: Mia S Soderquist <[log in to unmask]>
> a: Multiple recipients of list AUXLANG <[log in to unmask]>
>  : Re: AUXLANG: Judging Esperanto
>  : Friday, March 21, 1997 11:35 AM
>
> On Wed, 19 Mar 1997 22:14:57 -0500 Ken Caviness <[log in to unmask]>
> writes:
>
> >Syllogism:  1. Your friend is intelligent.  2. Your friend "tried to
> >learn" Esperanto, and gave up.  3. Therefore Esperanto is difficult.
> >Anecdotal "evidence".
> >I'm sorry that your very slight exposure to E-o has been negative, but
> >that doesn't make Esperanto difficult.
> >Are you aware that there is a sizeable Esperanto Mensa organization?
> >Apparently not all Mensa members have trouble with Esperanto.  :-)
> >More to the point, I know dozens of people who gave up studying a
> >"natural" language, thought they were constitutionally incapable of
> >learning a language, and were incredibly surprised to find themselves
> >fluent in Esperanto in a short time.  Tell them it's difficult!
>
>
> I've been trying to keep my distance from this whole smelly skirmish in
> the hopes that I would not help it to grow into yet another pointless
> Esperanto War, but I think I have a bit of commentary here that might be
> relevant for a lot of y'all IAL designers, so I'll have my say.
>
> I think how easy a language is depends on how well the methods it is
> presented in match up to the learning and thinking styles of the learner.
>
>  I don't learn well from books at all, and a correspondence course isn't
> of much use to me either. When I was first learning Spanish in high
> school, I took my little bit of bad textbook Spanish out and used it
> CONSTANTLY. I watched a lot of soap operas (telenovelas) on TV. I took my
> notes for other classes in as much Spanish as I could muster up. I
> annoyed my friends and complete strangers by refusing to speak English.
> Even as shy as I normally am*, I actually tried my Spanish out on native
> speakers, who gave me the most valuable feedback of all. That is how I
> learn..  call it oral-aural, if you will.
>
> This isn't to say that I can't learn at all from printed materials, but
> if all I have are books and tapes, I never develop any kind of real
> competence. I might know a lot about grammar by the time that I am done
> with it, and I can almost certainly construct simple sentences, but I
> don't have the kind of competence I'd need to fully express myself, and I
> find that extremely frustrating. This has been my experience with
> Esperanto. I really tried, but my only real time contact with
> Esperantists was through IRC, and it just isn't the same as face-to-face
> contact. It did help, but I was still just piling up simple sentences to
> try to convey my thoughts and filling in a lot of blanks with a
> dictionary, and I never really moved beyond that. To me, that isn't any
> kind of useful competence. My exposure to spoken Esperanto has been
> limited to a couple of tapes, which simply isn't enough material to work
> with.
>
> Now, I could buy audio materials and go meet Esperantists at conventions,
> but that would cost me money, which is the one thing I simply don't have.
> Finding people who speak Spanish where I live is easy and it doesn't cost
> me anything. The local Spanish language newspaper is free too. I can tune
> my radio to a couple of different stations when I want to hear it, or I
> can go listen to the priest at the local Catholic Church during the
> Spanish Mass. It's everywhere, and that is the best way *for me* to
> learn. So, it is fair to say that some people are going to give up on
> Esperanto simply because they have a hard time establishing contact with
> the resources that they really need to learn it well.
>
>  Esperanto will be easy for *some* people. It is just stupid to say that
> it will be easy for everyone based on the fact that some people can gain
> competence in a very short time. Esperanto will also be difficult for
> *some* people. The truth is that a lot of people find learning ANY second
> language takes a lot of time and effort.
>
> It isn't fair to compare natlangs and auxlangs? Well, widespread and
> immediately useful natlangs are the REAL competition for any auxlang
> looking for new speakers among the general populace. Unless you are only
> aiming to gain recruits among people who are interested in the conIAL
> cause or who just enjoy learning new languages for the fun of it, you
> have to see your conIAL as a competitor in the total language learning
> market.
>
> Are the rewards for learning Lx at least reasonably proportional to the
> effort of learning it? I suppose that depends on the rewards one is
> seeking. If it meant a substantial pay raise, some people would find
> learning Arabic was worth the effort expended. If you just want penpals
> with whom you have at least one thing in common, then Esperanto might
> just be your bet. If you want to communicate with the waiters at one
> all-night diner near my home, then Turkish is what you are looking for.
> Spanish is a pre-requisite for an increasing number of jobs in my local
> area, it is a good tool for making friends, and it opens a lot of travel
> destinations. If you want to get people to come to your little IAL-party,
> then you have to send them an invitation that promises them what they are
> looking for...AND you have to follow through, 'cause they'll dump you in
> a flash.
>
> When I was studying Esperanto, I heard a lot of "why are you studying a
> made-up language?" and "why bother learning a language that no one
> speaks?"  Now, whether those attitudes reflect reality or prejudice is
> irrelevant, because those are the attitudes that will ground any auxlang
> flight before it even takes off.
>
> Mia Sherryandra Soderquist
> [log in to unmask]  / [log in to unmask] [when it works...]
>
> ***
> [*How shy am I when I am not in hot pursuit of a new language? I blush
> when strangers talk to me. I hide behind my husband at social gatherings.
> I am really just pathetic. :) ]
>
> And I do find my own artlangs difficult to learn because I have no one to
> talk to except myself and my ever-patient puppy dog, and I have no one to
> listen to except recordings of myself. But I can fake it well enough
> because I have a lot of common phrases memorized, I have the vocabulary
> and grammar by my side, and if I screw up badly, I can always call it an
> "exception". :)