Learn Esperanto to Learn French, Chinese or Yiddish
Studies have been conducted on schoolchildren learning French. The children were divided into two groups. The first group started off learning French, the second started off learning one year of Esperanto before starting French. At the end of the study, the first group had studied French for four years, the second had studied Esperanto for one year and French for three years. Yet the second group performed better in French!
The reason for this is believed to be that one's first foreign language is the most difficult to learn. After that, adding an additional foreign language is easier. Since Esperanto is a very easy language to learn, it sets up the student for success in the target language.
How much easier is it to learn Esperanto than to learn French or German? It has been estimated that Esperanto can be learned in one-quarter to one-twentieth the time it would take to learn a natural language. A study was done with a group of native speakers of French, to see how many hours it would take them to get up to a standard level of fluency in different languages. It took them 2000 study-hours to learn German, 1500 study hours to learn English, 1000 study-hours to learn Italian, and only 150 study-hours to learn Esperanto.
Esperanto, as a constructed language designed as an international second language, was intended to be easy. L. L. Zamenhof, the creator of the language, made the grammar rules as simple as he thought possible, and used prefixes and suffixes regularly in word creation to simplify the learning of vocabulary.
There are many modern textbooks available to teach Esperanto. In addition, the student will want a copy of L. L. Zamenhof's Fundamento de Esperanto, which contains the original books introducing Esperanto. They contain an Esperanto word list with translations into English, French, German, Russian and Polish. In addition, many Internet resources are available for learning Esperanto. There is Lernu!, a language learning site which is available in many languages, including English. There are a number of Esperanto podcasts available, such as the daily one from Radio Polonia and the twice-weekly one from Vatican Radio. Radio China International has a daily shortwave broadcast in Esperanto which is also available on their web site. And MusicExpress en Esperanto has over 200 songs in Esperanto available for free download.
How much Esperanto study is enough to help you with learning your target language? It will vary from student to student, but in general one need not do a full year of study to reap benefits. Three months or so of Esperanto study can leave the student able to read many Esperanto texts, and to communicate with others in Esperanto. The Lernu! learning site has a message system which enables students to make friends of other Esperanto students.
Making connections with friends around the world through Esperanto can also help you in learning your target language. If you are learning German, you may find an Esperanto-speaking German to befriend on Lernu! or similar web sites. The person who speaks Esperanto is more likely than the average person to be interested in languages and in making friends with persons from other nations and cultures.
Learning Esperanto first may sound a bit like an excessively indirect way to learn your target language. But whether your target language is something common like French, difficult like Chinese, or obscure like Yiddish, studies have shown that learning Esperanto first may help you in your study without being a waste of your time.
References
Esperanto- Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto
Janton, Pierre - Esperanto: Language, Literature and Community - State University of New York Press, 1993
Forster, Peter G. - The Esperanto Movement - Mouton Publishers, 1982
Zamenhof, L. L. - Fundamento de Esperanto - Esperantaj Francaj Eldonoj
Lernu! Main Page (English) - http://en.lernu.net/
MusicExpress en Esperanto - http://www.musicexpress.com.br/stilo.asp?stilo=36
Published by N. I. Annakindt
N. I. Annakindt is a published poet and former teacher living in the Upper Midwest, now hard at work on a science fiction novel. View profile
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1 Comments
Post a CommentExcellent article, Nissa!
There is now a new resource for elementary teachers which guides the teacher and class together to Esperanto fluency with no prior learning needed.
It is called "Talking to the Whole Wide World" and was developed in Australia between 2007 and 2009 after 10 years of experience of teaching Esperanto in schools.
You can learn more from the website at www.mondeto.com