Why? Knowing these things won't make you a wiser person. I did not mean ignorant as opposite to smart. I meant ignorant as opposite to wise, sage-like.


I suggest you check out this topic I started:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=325&start=0


I agree with linguaboy on this one. Most Esperantists are actually ignorant of other languages, and even if they know other languages they are centred around Esperanto which they believe is the superior language and if anything they don't support multilingualism but Esperantoism. There is an article about on the top of this page I posted:
http://www.christopherculver.com/en/wri ... eranto.php

Obviously, understanding the words is not enough to understand the meaning of a sentence.
"Having the skills to be multilingual" is not "be multilingual from birth." You did not perceive I was joking either.
I do not believe (- THIS IS A BELIEVE - NOT A JOKE -) that there are specific skills needed to become multilingual, but rather more general skills that enable us to use a language and ape our neighbours.

If his business did not collapse, he obviously changed his selection criteria when he got more experience. (computers are my profession)

Easy: because they highly overestimate their capacity of speaking the foreign languages they claim to know. Because they confuse "knowing a language" with "knowing the grammar and the vocabulary" . When you learn Esperanto, you immediately are confronted with the harsh reality.

Your sample must be much smaller than mine.
It is true that it often happens that people who had a bad experience with foreign languages (as I had with Dutch) turn to Esperanto. But soon they realize that when they go on a visit to their friends abroad, they can pick up their language quite easily - at least enough to save themselves in everyday situations. My Dutch is now OK - thank you, but I will never claim I know Dutch even if they use to say "You are speaking Dutch quite well" (and I add mentally "for a French-speaking bastard").

This increases the reasons to study why they become more multilingual than average and how long after learning Esperanto.
(Hint :give them some time to make friends abroad and to visit them).

Remuŝ

No, actually; he retired a few years ago a rather well-off man. (He happens to be my cousin as well, so we've stayed in touch.)

But I suspect you've missed the point of this anecdote, which is that you haven't provided any evidence (anecdotal or otherwise) for any of the claims in you previous post.


I don't see how Esperanto is any different than any other language in that respect. It's usually well apparent the moment you try to communicate in a language you've studied whether you actually have a decent command of it or not.


It most likely is, given that I don't make a point of associating with Esperantists. But neither sample is remotely scientific (which gets back to my point about the lack of support for your claims, above).


Third time's a charm, so this is the last time I'll mention that this is once again something you've asserted without a shred of proof. Until you stop begging the question and actually furnish some evidence for this claim, I've got absolutely no reason to assume that Esperantists are any more multilingual than any other population.

Ask him how he honestly evaluates your capacities now, or better, try to write a progam in JAVA. Nothing is better than first-hand experience.



The anecdote shows me that your cousin liked to joke, or was eager to find collaborators of any kind (provided that at the time he had some experience with the required skills for the job - BTW there are very specific tests hardly related with language skills ).



You don't see, no wonder. How could you, you have not experienced it. Usually learning the grammar and a decent vocabulary of a languages takes years;
In Esperanto weeks.


That's your right


Glad to hear that. Indeed my sample, is highly biased because it contains chiefly people who travel (so have some money, but not not too much to have to stay with friends, and have a job that gives them a lot of free time to travel)



What theorem do you want me to prove. Outside of mathematics, there is no proof possible.

There are merely statistics and personal experience (what I trust most).
Perhaps you are that sort of guy who needs to refer to some authority when he can check easily on his own.


Well then, take my word for it! Or move your ass and go to some congress (next in Havana - You will be able to practise your Spanish)
_______________________________________________________________________

It always amazed me that people who claim knowing as many languages as you do, cannot spend 3 days to read "La fundamento" (http://www.akademio-de-esperanto.org/fundamento/) en complete the 42 exercises.
That makes me wonder about their language skills. Or the prejudices against the language must be very deeply rooted indeed. Very strange that an apparently innocent language can generate such hate reactions from people who do not know a word from it.

Oh, I forgot: you don't have any interest and three days of your precious time are really excessive to reach the conclusion that indeed grammar and vocabulary are not sufficient.
Remuŝ

I tried learning Esperanto, I went through several lessons in maybe a week or two. But I found it too simple and boring. That and plus the fact I'd rather know several world languages than one auxiliary language. I don't like to make things simpler. Making things simpler means dumbing down is not far away.

But Delodephius, Esperanto is not a simple pidgin, it has now become just another language.

No experience in Esperanto here either, but I've heard from some learners of it that vocabulary usage is horrible, since you have to be very active in the community to grasp it... As well as the productivity of affixes, first because most learners are IE speakers, and as such, Esperanto system of affixes doesn't fit in their mind well, and then because it's sort of lexicalized.

That, and /Cts/ consonant clusters are not very nice for non-Slavonic speakers ("scienco" /stsientso/).
You still keep on evading the request of providing evidence that Esperanto makes other languages easy to learn. (The theorem that he wants you to show proof for—since you posted as a truth, and that he has asked you three times for.)
I have no interest at all in the Esperanto movement. Learning it because somebody told me it was easy makes me feel like a lazy ass as well.
Interesting, I'm under the impression that it's Esperantists who are the most prejudiced towards the language. To me it's just another language, you're interested in the community that speaks it, or not.

How exactly? How would reading "la fundamento" improve or affirm someone's language skills more than a linguistics degree, not to mind being able to converse excellently in German and Irish and more languages that I haven't personally experienced? Your argument is based on a fundamental flaw, that not learning Esperanto means something. Rather like the reluctant atheist, just because people don't learn Esperanto doesn't mean anything. I haven't learned any Basque, that doesn't mean they have a prejudice against it.

EDIT: I forgot to add, why would anyone particularly what you think about their language skills? I'm pretty sure that picking up a newspaper or talking to a native in whatever language or languages will tell them quite accurately how much they know.

And your computer vs. languages is utterly ridiculous. I know at least one trilingual who spends his time reparing computers, as well as myself, I'm a programmer as well as an amateur linguist.

Well, then, how about your provide some statistics? (Pretty disingenuous of you to pretend you don't know what "proof" consists of in this context.) Personal experience is all well and good, but I'm not you and it's not transferrable. Why should I put more stock in your experience than I do in my own--particularly when I don't know a thing about you except that you're an Esperantophile who thinks he knows everything?


There you go contradicting yourself again. On the one hand, you repeat the bromide that "grammar and vocabulary aren't enough", yet what's in the Fundamento isn't either; it's simply morphology with a dash of word order thrown in. The only reason it can get away with being as brief as it is is that it relies on the cheat of having learners import their preexisting knowledge--painstakingly acquired over the course of a lifetime--of European natlangs.


The best defence is a good offence, eh Remush? You're seeing hate where there isn't any. I've got nothing at all against Esperanto; I simply have nothing for it either, whereas I've got quite a bit of interest in various natural languages. Why should I bother learning Esperanto? Because some anonymous dude on the 'Net will call me names if I don't? Well, that makes for an an easy decision!

Good luck making the world safe for Esperantismo! I'm sure this in-your-face approach of yours is winning the movement oodles of converts!

If you base your believes just on what Culver wrote, read http://esperanto-usa.org/en/node/193.
When I go to an Esperanto World Congress, I prefer not to be addressed in French by people who want to practise their French. Go to France, you'll have plenty of opportunities.

If it's obvious that if you don't understand a word of the Congress language and are genuinely requesting information, you will soon receive an answer in any language you happen to speak.
BTW, there always is an initiation to the local language in every World Congress. There are several sessions that are well attended.

So what Culver says is blatantly untrue.
Go and check for yourself.

... other matters answered elsewhere...
You may also read http://remush.be/rebuttal/index.html
Remuŝ

No, I meant learning just Esperanto instead of a few major natlangs.

I always wondered with how many people one could actually talk to when s/he goes to another country with the knowledge of Esperanto. I mean, if you come to any country in the Balkans or Central Europe (where I live and visit the 'hood), I don't think you'll find many people to talk to. Rather learn English or German, these are at least understood by young people. With Esperanto you'll just have to restrict yourself to other Esperantists, and there are very few of those here. At least I never met one.
I don't know about other poorer parts of the world.