Hi thanks for looking at my query. I recently as a joke changed some writing on the board of a friends EAL (English as an Additional Language) classroom from English to German. She liked the idea, but using Google Translate resulted in an overly formal phrasing that made it seem more a demand than a suggestion or polite request.
So my ask, if you speak (or I guess write) another language I would love to request you take a moment to translate “Please stack chairs at the end of the day” into whichever language you can help me with, it should be a polite request though.
I’m really not sure what the composition of her class is but she is a fan of languages as a whole so even if it’s not a language that is represented in her class I am sure it will be a bit of fun and a talking point to figure it out.
If you have the time and the skills to help I really appreciate it, otherwise I appreciate you taking the time to read this post. Have a fantastic day.
Dankon
Esperanto seems like an interesting language to study, do you find my opportunities to use it?
Basically none. A couple friends have learned a little bit with me, and I’ve sought out a couple Esperanto books, podcasts, etc.
But otherwise I can’t say that I’ve ever randomly run into another esperantist I could talk to, and I’m not the type of person who seeks out clubs and conventions or making friends with strangers online.
But it’s an easy language to learn, and I feel like it’s taught me how to learn a language, and I think that I’ll be better prepared if I ever decide to try picking up another language somewhere down the line.
And while I’m not holding my breath, I like the idea of an international auxiliary language, and while there’s some valid criticism of Esperanto for that purpose (like that it’s too eurocentric) it’s probably about the best option that we have right now since it already exists, there’s people who actually speak it and it doesn’t have all of the weird grammar rules and such that natural languages all tend to have.
Yes, Esperanto has many advantages of a manufactured language, but I think there are only something like 2 million speakers worldwide. If someone wanted to dip their toes into it, Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat series has Esperanto sprinkled throughout it, and has been translated into Esperanto. He was a fan. You certainly won’t learn it reading his (English) books, but the structure is very recognizable.
Probably the coolest thing since I started learning it is some of the weird places it turns up
If you read the comic series Saga, the “blue” language is Esperanto
It shows up in the background of some movies and such as a generic “foreign” language
The watch brand Movado is an Esperanto word (movement)
I first heard of it thanks to Red Dwarf if that counts for anything.
Awesome, you actually answered all the questions I had bubbling away in my head but didn’t want to be too presumptive in asking. More decades ago than I care admit, I did a 25 hour Latin course. Very little of it stuck with me but it seems like Esperanto could fill a similar niche to the one I was trying to fill by learning latin, as a bridging language to be more capable in the Romance languages. I’m sure there are studies out there on language as sociology, as the largest con-lan I am aware of I wonder how deep that research runs? Another thing for me to read up on I guess.
Thanks again!
I’ve never dived too deep into in, but I know there has been some research into native Esperanto speakers (denaskuloj) because that’s a thing that exists
And isn’t that amazing, a conciously constructed language having native speakers is just kind of amazing. So much of English is legacy cruft that has accumulated organically since it seperated from Old English, and so much of Old English was likewise accumulated from its antecedents. A language, any language with a clear dilineation has an opportunity to start with a clean slate that is informed but not slaved to the past. Things like vowel orders can be made as rules without having more exceptions than complying words. Brilliant.