Do you speak Esperanto? + New Edit

There are some more Esperantospeakers actually. Even this site can be switched to Esperanto - look at the bottom of this page: www.ipernity.com/blog/gina/37932?lg=eo
For further information look at:
www.esperanto.org

I don't speak Esperanto, but I think Esperanto is a very nice idea. However it wasn't successful: English is the new Esperanto. Using Esperanto for international communication would probably be better than English because Esperanto is more easy to learn than English.

If I'd get into a circle of friends which used Esperanto, I would learn it. Otherwise it is fairly pointless I think. The relatively high amount of Esperanto speakers on Ipernity is exceptional. I have only met one Esperanto speaker in my whole life, before I joined Ipernity.

There is one other simple communication language I know of: Bahasa Indonesia, which is spoken in Indonesia and Malaysia as a second language.

Esperanto kann man im Internet lernen
Esperanto you can learn in internet

www.lernu.net

Esperanto you can learn in Aachen

www.esperanto.de/vereine/gruppen-a.html#Aachen

www.senlime.be/_sgg/m3m1_1.htm

Die lernu-Seite habe ich mir angeschaut.
Die andere Seite hat mich allerdings abgeschreckt.

Thanx for your long comment.
I also never met an Esperanto-speaker. So I cannot imagine how this language is.

Most the time I talk with people from other countries it's in English and it works well!
My Ipernity is still in the English-mode although I could use German. Ipernity is for me an international way for communication. That's why!

I am an Esperanto-speaker ;-) You can say you know about one! As Frank said, there is an important community of Esperanto-speakers in Ipernity. About 500 persons with in different countries: Hungary, Nederland, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, USA, Israel, Iran, China, Japan... see my own contacts: about 60-70% are Esperanto-speakers. I write the titles & description of my documents in Esperanto and also my blog (my Esperanto-friends are the audience target)

Esperanto is my first language of choice in international media. But when my audience does not know the language I use English, but I'm not confidence with it. In chat with italians/portugueses/brazilians I use my own language (Spanish) and ask them to use Italian or Portuguese, both I understand passively.

Hehe, knowing is good...

English isn't easy for me too. It's hard to follow some important discussions sometimes (like here). But this is the way I can "reach" most of the non-German people.
I learnt it at school and never really used it till the Internet got more important and the communication to people in the world grew.

Well, perhaps you have met esperanto-speakers before, but you didn't know they were esperantists. I'm myself esperantist, I teach Esperanto in Madrid, and really, I don't know how an Esperantist looks, hehe

Yes that's possible...

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Pedro! ĉu vi ankoraŭ ne progresas en la germanan, ke vi uzas la anglan surogate!? :-DDD

Kredu min, nuntempe mi pli kapablas en la gaela ol en la germana :-D... Ich habe drei jahre Germanistik studiert, aber das war vor 20 jahre! Ich hoffe, meine Freundin wird mir hilfen, meine Deutsche Kentnisse zu verbessern... aber wir sprechen nur Esperanto zu Hause!

I don't speak esperanto, i speak arabic, french and english :)

Oh arabic. Can you write something please? (It doesn't matter if it's stupid! hehe)

ditto Zara, although not in same order! Oh and a bit of German too!

Das ist gut! ;o)

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Bin froh wenn ich mit Deutsch klar komme ;-))

Stimmt. Deutsch ist wirklich sehr schwer zu lernen.

Na da ist zum Glück sprechen einfacher als schreiben.
Bei der ständigen Rechtschreibungs-Wechselei kam/kommt man eh kaum mit.

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You are not the only one who doesn't know Esperanto, I've never heard it ;o) I use English and Icelandic here, understand a bit in German and French.

I am lucky I am not the only one!
Hmmm, how could Esperanto sounds like? I also don't know, hehe...
Write something in Icelandic for me please! Dankeschön!

Þegar maður er beðinn um að skrifa "eitthvað", hefur maður ekki hugmynd um hvað það ætti eiginlega að vera. Öðrum en íslendingum finnst þetta sjálfsagt alveg óskiljanlegt, en það er bara í góðu lagi ;o)

:D Svakalega var þetta vel orðað hjá þér Oddur!

oh... looks nice... but I have no idea what's about.
the translation via internet is too crazy...

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I just wrote that when you are asked to write "something" you don't have a clue what to write. The Icelanders would probably find this text a bit strange, but it wouldn't matter :o)

LOL... I know... I am silly, hehe... and you too cause you did it! but thanx anyway. Maybe I can learn the icelandic danke and bitte .

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Well danke is easy: takk , but bitte is a bit harder. You can both use takk or vinsamlega, depends on what you are saying ;o)

Takk! ;o)
Ah ok. Similar like sorry and excuse me (Entschuldigung).

Tre bele... mi ne multe konatiĝis kun la islanda lingvo, ĝis kiam mi venis al Ipernity kaj trovis Oddur, Pixie kaj Ragnheidur.

Mirigas min tiu bela litero "ð" ;-)

How Esperanto sounds? Listen to counting to ten in Esperanto:

www.youtube.com/v/7ChxsWveLsg&rel=1

Tre amuza Frank! Tamen, eble Gina povas plenumi sian scivolemon pri kiel "sonas" la lingvo per tiu ĉi alia filmeto:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DD_RsWplIY

(kun subtitoloj en la germana /mit Deutsch untertitel)

Ich habe hier in Pirna einen Mann kennengelernt, der fließend esperanto schreibt und spricht. Er hat mir auch die Übersetzung imBlog gemacht. Er hat eine Reihe von Leuten - Japaner - Chinesen - Araber - mit denen er sich über Esperanto verständigen kann. und ich werde es auch lernen...Esperanto kennt keine Ausnahmen.. keine unregelmäßigen Verben und Worte und ist dementsprechend leicht zu lernen ... na ... dann frisch ans Werk....

Kannst ja mal berichten, wie der Lernprozess von statten geht. Und wie Du da vorgegangen bist
Ich hab derzeit genug zu lernen mit meinem Uni-Kram. ;o)

I speak French, English, Italian and some words in Spanish.

Esperanto is spoken by 2.000.000 persons, which is really few comparing to english or spanish or chinese :) It is one of my 2008 project to learn Esperanto, but I'm not sure I'll manage to, as I also have to organize a weeding :D


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So let us know what will happen this year!
Your own wedding? When is it?

Yes, M'am, my own wedding, which should be on August, 2nd :)

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Oh nice. So we will see a lot of wedding-pix in August!
Maybe already before some of the organisation-thing. ;o)

I remember when they first started talking about Esperanto as a universal language... but I don't speak it and I've never heard it or seen it on print.
I speak Icelandic, English and Danish... and I've learned French, German and Latin so I understand something in those ;o)

How many years ago you heard about it for the first time?

Hehe... far too many!! No seriously, I can't remember... suppose it was sometime in the 80's ;o)

And I thought you could remember, hehe... tssst...

Ooops, you caught me there! ;o)

So, you seem very young, indeed. The first time it was proposed Esperanto as an International Languages was in... 1887! ;-)

So I was right about the '80... just the wrong century! ;o)

i dont and my children dont learn it at school, i dont know what the F* it's all about.
:)

Hehe, klare Ansage!

May be here you can find out what the F* it's all about. :)
www.translationdirectory.com/article722.htm

also egal wo ich bisher war auf der welt...
mit deutsch, englisch und ein wenig französisch und spanisch
bin ich überall zurechtgekommen...
also seh' ich auch keinerlei grund esperanto zu lernen :))

Na das ist auch 'ne Menge, was Du an Sprachen kannst. Selbst wenn es nur grundlegende Sachen wären.
Bis jetzt bin ich mit Englisch auch ganz gut gefahren. Und in Holland und Belgien muss ich das nur noch mit Deutsch und Sächsisch mischen, haha...

Sächsisch??

Na sowas wie geen probleem oder ik weet het niet kann man mit sächsisch ganz gut verstehen denke ich, hehe...
Aber was bedeutet nur: Ik ben moe? ;o)

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English is my preferred internet language - do not understand Esperanto... I really think though that it is a good thing to have one universal language but am not so sure it will ever happen!! :o)

Who thought in 1988, that the Berlin wall would finally disappear?

Well, for me, it really happens now. Esperanto is the language I used for traveling abroad, to communicate with pesons all over the world and to get information from other countries, and i'ts also the only language we speak at home, and the mother tonge of my daughter

hehe - sehr interessante frage ! wo lernt man esperanto ? außer hier bin ich noch nie damit konfrontiert worden. weder im job noch in der schule - sollte man latein gg. esperanto tauschen ? nun ich bin froh, daß ich mein englisch hier wieder so richtig auf hochglanz polieren kann und ein paar brocken französisch kann ich auch noch, aber dann .... ich bewundere alle die mehr als eine fremdsprache sprechen ... wobei mir pers. englisch reicht !! moagst no a bisserls bairisch redn ? *kicher* :))

Esperanto hilft mir...
· die englischen und französischen Vokabeln zu behalten, die ich mühsam lernte.
· die Struktur meiner Muttersprache besser zu verstehen.
· Fremdwörter abzuleiten - ich muß nicht Latein und Griechisch lernen (tote Versionen).
· logisch zu denken.
· Wörter deutlich auszusprechen.
· mich als Weltbürger zu fühlen.
· Freunde in aller Welt zu finden.

fm.esocom.de

My mother in law had to learn Esperanto but she hasn't spoken it in a long time. English is by default the "new" Esperanto. That being said, aside from English and Filipino I've now added German, Swiss German and Appenzeller to my language skills.

English cannot be a "new" Esperanto, because it's not neutral, I cannot (and I never won't be able to) use English as an Englishman, and it's really difficult to learn to speak it properly. My students need about two months to be able to speak Esperanto quite well. Do you think it is possible to do the same in English?

I'm a native English speaker; I'm American. And I'm totally sick of talking to people online in English. It takes them years to learn it, and I still can't understand some of what they're trying to say. I truly wish it weren't the 'lingua franca' of our time! I learned Esperanto 3 years ago, and use it for collaborative projects (where there are people from a lot of different nationalities involved). It is a lot easier; it has simple, regular grammar; there are no exceptions to the grammar rules. In ipernity chats get going among Iranians, Russians, Germans, Spaniards, etc. And we all understand each other very well. It's proven itself superior to English as a communication tool. Yeah, I'm sold on it. If you want to learn it, there's a great site: lernu
Now, for learning another's culture, you've really got to learn their language.
You learn other ways of thinking and doing when you learn another native language.
Native languages are like precious insights into the thoughts of other societies.
I need to get back to my Hebrew study!

Interesting discussion, Gina!
I'm one of the people that helped translate Ipernity into Esperanto. I use it daily and most of my blog entries (except the latest) are also in Esperanto, as well as the tags to my photos.
I'm glad to use also English, French, some German and Spanish and of course my native tongue Dutch in Ipernity. I love this multilingual community!! I believe every language you speak is an asset.

I never thought so much people take part at this discussion. But so I can see it is something where people can talk about and it doesn't matter if the speak Esperanto or not.
It's like a come together! Good feeling!

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In fact, this article is in front of 'hot spots' since yesterday!

Hey this is fun. :)

When I lived in England, long ago, I started learning Esparanto. It was easy and fun, but I never found anyone to use it with.
Now, living and struggling with German, (possible to speak, almöst impoßßible to write).

Written Icelandic is fascinating, I´d love to know which sounds are represented by the extra letters...Does Icelandic have th , as in English the or three?

In Icelandic, the would be written ðe and three would be þrí :o)

When I once tried to l learn Icelandic I loved this sentence: ðaþ var flugvel aþ lenda. In (bad) German: Da war ein Flugzeug am landen. (An aeroplane was landing). I'd like to land in Iceland again and meet my (also Icelandic) Esperantofriends from 1977 when I stayed in Reykjavík for the Esperantocongress for all worldwide Esperantospeakers.
www.uea.org/bildoj/pub/k1977uk-kongreslibro-nov.jpg

This is almost right... but you switched the ð and the þ "það.. að" :o)

So Reykjavík in Esperanto is Rejkjaviko ?

Jes... (I mean, yes!)
www.bertilow.com/lanlin/europo.html#IS

When you use proper names (like names of persons, cities, etc.) in Esperanto texts or speech, you can choose between three possibilities, depending on the situation, your audience, and your style. First is to leave them untouched (in a text this is possible only if the name is in roman script of course), second is to adapt the spelling to indicate the approximate pronounciation using Esperanto alphabet - it would be Rejkjavik in this case - and third is to adapt the name also to Esperanto grammar, which postulates an -o as the ending of nouns - what makes it Rejkjaviko. Sounds complicated? Perhaps, but it's not complicated at all, it is flexible.

Right. All names in Esperanto end in "-o". If you put an "-a" instead, you'll have an adjective: "rejkjavika" means "of/from Rejkjavik, and if you put an "-", you have and adverb: "rejkjavike", and so one with every wore. Easy, isn't it?

Interesting... has Islandic the corresponding voiceless sound? I mean "th"-like sound in "thing", "thanks"...

Yes, "þ" is very similar to the voiceless "th". Þú meaning "you" and þetta, meaning "this" are pronounced like a voiceless "th".

Thanks Oddur. I should guess that!

Well, Islandic is the third or fourth language I know with this sound. Spanish also has it (represented by "z" and "c" in syllabes "ce/ci") but most Spanish-speakers, in America and the south of Spain, pronounce it as "s".

This sound seems strangely avoided...

I have studied many languages in my life, and I only remember it in Icelandic, English, Spanish and Modern Greek. I supose it exist also in Faeroese