Why I Won't Learn Esperanto...

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[ColeMorton]

After moving to Germany 7 years ago and spending the majority of my time since then with Portuguese, Spanish, and German friends/coworkers, as well as, frequenting Spain, France and Portugal. I can absolutely say that nothing has better prepared me to learn, and more importantly, remember all the languages I use, than the two weeks that I spent four years ago learning Esperanto. The properdeutic value of two weeks of "relaxed" Esperanto has fundamentally reshaped my relationship with all languages. Small investment, huge payoff. Tangible value.

[neilnachum]

As a USA American who speaks Esperanto for 45 years, I've estimated that 90% of my fellow citizens born here will remain monolingual. Or worse, most American bilinguals will never use their second language, traveling with English alone. With a few exceptions grandchildren of immigrants will be monolingual. I learned Esperanto, traveled to 34 countries, was accepted in over 100 people's homes, invited some 200 Esperanto speakers into my home, many for several days. I think I've made the world a little better. While living in Brazil I met family members of Esperanto speakers and with some effort also became conversant in Esperanto. About half of the Esperanto speakers that I've met are quite trilingual. A quarter, like myself, learned four or five languages, and feel most proficient in Esperanto. Traveling to Esperanto conferences has been a major motivator for learning languages. At conferences I've met many thousands of Esperanto speakers. On-line I'm in touch with many thousands of Esperanto speakers.

[leonf.]

I'm learning it to speak with people around the world who are also interested in speaking with me. Just because you learn Chinese, doesn't mean Chinese people, for example will want to speak with you :D

With Esperanto, you start with a common interest and perhaps develop friendship from there.

[rauljosegarcia]

The reason to learn Esperanto is exactly the reason you stated... to speak with someone you could otherwise not talk to. I learned it because I studied it during the summer to check for myself whether the claims as to its simplicity were true and practical in a real-world sense. It turns out that they are. Prior to that I had studied Japanese for 2 years, mostly self-study, and of course I learned *some* Japanese, but not to a level where I could connect with another individual in a meaningful way. I was also interested in Arabic, and other languages... Realizing how big of an investment just one of those two languages would be, I wondered if there was a language that would be "easy to learn" so that I could speak with someone who doesn't speak English, without me having to learn a time-consuming language. It turns out there have already been (many) attempts to create such a language. Esperanto is one of them.

Learning languages "just to add one to the list" is something only a polyglot or polyglot-aspirant will say. Your average person will not care about that. Someone who genuinely had an interest in doing minimal/reasonable amount of work to speak with someone who does not share their language would be open to Esperanto or something like it.

In my experience, people who speak Esperanto are generally passionate about some political cause or another, or about languages, or multilingualism. They think it's a great idea, and for the most part are excited to tell others about it. It's not very different from the concept of La Francophonie and its promotion of French.

There is a huge potential benefit to be derived from knowing Esperanto, which is based on the network effect and its relative simplicity. However, if people don't understand this, its value will never be realized.

[BenjaminkAnderson]

It doesn't sound like there is any reason for you to learn Esperanto and that is okay.

I learned it with my wife because she wanted to learn a new language but was feeling very frustrated with Brazilian Portuguese (I speak portuguese and so she started learning it).

We found out about Esperanto and decided to learn it together. It has been a great experience and we both love the language. She is planning on learning Portuguese still and feels quite a bit more confident that she can tackle it this time around.

[imedbenzahra]

They say knowing Esperanto makes Other Romance languages more easy to learn

[paulhowlett]

What is Esperanto? It is not some sort of secret political agenda. Esperanto was created to be a second language to everyone. The original idea was to allow communication between 4 different language groups that lived in the same city and all hated one another in part, due to the different languages that were spoken at that time. Esperanto has a lot of value for assisting new language learners start on the road to leaning other foreign languages. Most Esperanto speakers that I know usually speak 3 or more languages. Esperanto will enable you to travel to any country in the world and meet with other Esperanto speakers, who will gladly show you around their part of the world. I find that Esperanto helps you with any Romance based language learning!

[arrowwhiskers]

To me the main point of Esperanto is community. As a person who loves languages, being part of a community where everyone learned a language for no other reason than because they wanted to--that's the kind of community I want to be a part of. :) There might be some people with political motivations, but I've talked to lots of Esperantists from all over the world and most people are just in it to make friends and have fun. I also have a couple of Esperanto friends who don't really share other languages with me! I find it comforting to know that even though it's literally impossible to learn every language in the world, Esperanto can often bridge the gaps for me without expecting others to learn my language.

That said, I don't understand people who preach and try to coerce others into learning. The community I described only really makes sense if everyone wholeheartedly chose to participate for themselves. So, if it isn't something of interest to you, then that's totally valid, and nobody should be pressuring you into it.

[juangarciadelrio]

Esperanto is, by far, the easiest language that you can learn. But it's also, by far, the most interesting thing that someone who loves languages can EVER learn. It will take you little effort, but a great benefit. A benefit not only for you, but also for a better world. (And this would be too long to explain, so I leave it there).

[MalteMoe]

I see learning Esperanto also as getting an insight into many different European languages and as an easy way to start learning different grammatical concepts you don't have in your native language or you weren't conscious of before. I'd say that learning Esperanto is a good way of getting your language journey started. Especially for beginners Esperanto might be a good first step, because you can see progress very quickly and get confidence for learning other languages. Besides vocabulary picked from different Romance, Germanic and Slavic languages there are also some words which are a mix of their equivalents in Germanic, Romance and/or Slavic, so it can help you to build bridges between the languages. And every language you've learned makes learning another language easier, because you have more possibilities to connect new things to things you already know. I for example haven't learned a Slavic language before, but I can imagine that having learned Esperanto (and Romanian) could give me a big advantage in terms of vocabulary (and maybe grammar as well, but I'm not sure of that), probably way more than any other Romance and Germanic language.

[rapn]

In the video you complained about people trying to convince you to learn Esperanto, but at the end of the video you ask people to try to convince you in the comments. Which is it? I don't want to leave a comment only for you to complain that it's being forced on you.

[ShopMom]

To the political rumors...some countries, Germany for example, used that as propaganda to kill off any speakers of Esperanto as they considered it part of the Jewish/Polish revolution. So anytime you hear politics as a reason, be aware that past propaganda has far reaching and long lasting effects.
I am learning Esperanto to help in my ability to learn other languages.

[Juvel]

A language is a language, Esperanto is, you just have to know it and then you will have an opinion, for me it is the best, it is part of my life, sorry it is that I think.

[crnel]

I'm a Libertarian (classical liberal) and an Esperantist. There's no need to be any particular political leaning to participate in the Esperanto community.

[coisasdeidiomas]

Esperanto estas amuzaj lingvo kaj tre facile.
I have met people who teaches Esperanto here in Brazil, plus my friend got me into it (he loves languages), even my grandpa is learning, and he reads his textbooks every day, I swear to you.
Applying what you've learned as a language learner makes you learn Esperanto really fast, it was so interesting trying it out for some months, it's very rewarding.
As for traveling, there is actually a community, a sort of like couch surfing only for Esperanto speakers(as far as I know), plus there're a lot of books to read as well, you can connect to people from all over the world actually...You can actually travel, meet a local, rely entirely on Esperanto and then get to know the country you're going to. It's a community of language learners, everyone is in the same boat, it can't be bad. 😋

[SilentJaguar]

The whole point about people saying you should learn it resonates highly with me. I remember in high school I took French, cause I was interested in the culture and I thought it was cool.

Since I was one of the better students in my class, people would always tell me I should learn Spanish, as it would be “super easy” for me. I said no for the longest time, until about my senior year when I decided to go on a trip to Mexico with the Spanish class. The only reason I went is cause the Europe trip was cancelled, but I figured I’d make the best of it. Learned for a few months and realized the similarities did help, and then they only hindered as I tried to speak more in just Spanish. I haven’t kept up my Spanish since that trip to Mexico 3 years ago, as I have no real strong desire to do.

Yet people still continue to tell me that I should learn it since it would be so helpful and all these other reasons. I usually took that with a grain of salt since like 90% of them don’t actually speak Spanish themselves.

Now I’ve learned Romanian to a conversational level (working on fluency now) and starting to make some progress with Russian. I know that I’ve only had true success in these languages cause I have that interest, that motivation, and (most importantly) friends to talk to in those languages.

Unless I meet a Latina who changes my mind, I don’t see myself learning Spanish any time soon. Though funnily enough I have an interest in Portuguese:))

[seanoriain]

I speak 7 other languages fluently, and can understand several others, but learning Esperanto has immeasurably enriched my life. It is futuristic - a 22nd Century idea which appeared in the 19th Century. It allows communication where the speakers can go far deeper, as the can give full concentration to the content of what they are saying, and are not distracted by grammatical the past tense of this verb irregular? do I use a subjunctive here? which is the correct article for this word? etc. You are, of course, free not to learn Esperanto. But if you make this choice, you don't know what you're missing!

[colinrobinson]

Saluton, Jan. You asked about the politics of Esperanto and what it means to be an "Esperantist". I'd point out, first, that the "ist" suffix has a different range of uses In Esperanto than in English. For instance, a "naĝisto" is a "swimmer" — anyone who can and does swim. Similarly, an "Esperantisto" is anyone who can and does use Esperanto, regardless of what they use the language for, and regardless of what they or don't believe about politics and religion. It's historically true that Esperanto was born out of internationalist ideals. Its founder, Dr Zamenhof, believed that all humans are one family, and he hoped that an international language would bring the human family together... His hope was shared by many of the people in what became the Esperanto-using community, and it still is... But Esperanto is an all-purpose language — if you think internationalism is utopian nonsense, you can say that in Esperanto too.

[husainmHack]

The point of Esperanto was to create an easy to learn, cross culture language to serve as a global lingua franca. The intention was that it not have a country or a culture attached to it, since its sole purpose is to bridge those divides. It is a bit ironic when people don't want to learn it because "where do I go to speak Esperanto?" or "not many people speak it", "there's no (cultural) connection."
The reason people aren't learning it is that enough people haven't learnt it. Why does it need a country, or a people who speak it to qualify as valuable? It exists to serve a higher purpose than that. It being easy or whatever is secondary, one should learn it if they think a single common global language is a good idea.
[I haven't learnt it myself, and am not an Esperantist. I just find the reasons people cite to not learn it very ironic, I mean, they're looking for the very thing (culture, country, race/tribe of people) that Esperanto is trying to not be.]
As for the argument of "Why not learn Korean or Indonesian?", "Why not just spread English more?"---> *SIGH* They are associated with a country or place, or culture, or people.

[Prosperh]

The truth is that Esperanto, at least in the current state of affairs, is not for everyone. Which is why insisting too much ultimately fails. Although there is a variety of reasons to learn it, none of them is compelling enough to reach everyone, and the language tends to attract certain types of people and repell others. Let's not forget that in the end the vast majority of people is interested in a tiny fraction of the world's languages, maybe a few dozens, and usually the most spoken ones.

I do, however, think that there is a widespread dismissive attitude towards the language, fueled by dubious claims ("it's not a real language", "it has no culture", etc.) and this should be fought against. Esperanto as a language works, and it works very well actually. But people have the right not to find it interesting and that's fine.