Esperanto Journey

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chobbs
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Esperanto Journey

Postby chobbs » Sat Sep 05, 2015 4:09 am

Decided I would get a log started as it seemed a good place to dump my thoughts as I and the family work through getting to fluency in Esperanto.

Background
Earlier this year my youngest son announced that he had decided that he wanted to learn Japanese. My oldest son had been studying German for awhile, and I had been working on French for a couple years. My wife had nothing but high school Spanish, of which we had both taken a few years, and she felt like learning a language was not in the cards for her at all. Trying to get my youngest going with Japanese was quite a chore as my wife had zero interest in it, and although I would like to learn it at some point, it wouldn't be on my radar for quite some time. Since we were not going to be able to help him along we talked about various ways of turning our family multi-lingual in the easiest possible manner.

Ultimately we decided to all learn Esperanto. Here is a link to the original thread over at the old HTLAL. This goal would get us all to fluency in a language other than English, something that had eluded me thus far in French, in the quickest possible manner. We would get an extra boost for our subsequent languages (especially the Romance family) and it would be a great way to ease into things for my youngest. The end goal being that we use Esperanto for all of our family communication until we learn languages that overlap with others in the family and then we would speak with that person in the shared language.

This was something that we all discussed for quite awhile before diving in a few months ago (June 2015). I put my French studies on hold, and my oldest did the same for his German.

Family Status
Chris :: Started with Lernu to get some basics and Memrise to build some vocabulary. Moved to Duolingo when the Esperanto beta became available. Completed my tree a little over a month ago and since then have been reading and listening to a variety of content.

Gave up on Memrise as it totally pissed me off having so many things be wrong with no way to tell it - "yes, I got the answer correct". Should have just pulled the courses into Anki (since they were all available as shared decks) so I could edit all the errors and have control over the answer status. Doesn't really matter though as it gave me a good initial vocab boost, which was all I wanted in the first place. I prefer to consume more content rather than deal with SRS anyway.

Have started in on my stack of books that I am going to get to a little bit later in the post. At this point I can understand a fair bit of the Radio Verda podcasts and Evildea videos, but most stuff is still needing to run through a English verification filter. My wife and I have also been watching Pasporto Al La Tuta Mondo when we have time, mostly using it as a sanity check for our progress and just an additional source of input.

Emily :: My wife is probably 3/4 of the way through her Duolingo tree after starting out the with the same Lernu/Memrise approach. She is still going through Memrise, but is getting more frustrated by the day. Not sure how much longer it will last but she is currently working through reading Gerda Malaperis and Lasu Min Paroli Plu and I have provided her with a bunch more content for when she is ready. Given her high school Spanish experience she is overjoyed at her progress and ability after just these few months.

William :: My oldest son has probably the best ear for the language (well any language really). He is a bit behind my wife in his Duo tree, but far surpasses her in comprehension despite not putting in nearly as much time - which really irritates her! No matter what sentence I speak to him he pretty easily comprehends the meaning. He seems to have a knack for this and I have been encouraging him to start consuming content (videos, some of the pile of books we have, etc), but thus far it hasn't started happening. Not too worried about him though as he seems to just kind of do things in his own way and doesn't need much hand holding.

Benjamin :: My youngest son is having the hardest time out of all of us. He struggles a bit with the English side of things on his Duo tree, and got so frustrated with his Memrise that I just had him drop it. I have been trying out various games with him and encouraging him to spend time watching Mazi and Evildea videos. It may take the rest of us becoming more fluent and having more interactions with him in Esperanto to really get things moving for him. That said, I have been happy that working through the Duo tree has helped his English writing and given him a really gentle introduction to grammar concepts.

Book List

Below is a list of the books that I have available and will be working through. Some are printed books (green), others are epubs (blue), and some are only pdf (purple) files (which means I need to be in front of the computer to read them - unlike my epub files which I can pull onto my eReader). I included a rough page count of each and ordered them in the approximate order I plan to read them. I am currently reading the first three, am about halfway through each, and plan to devour them all.

  • La Aventuroj De Alicio En Mirlando - 85 pages
  • Amuza Legolibro En Esperanto - 216 pages
  • Fajron Sentas Mi Interne - 118 pages
  • Cisko Kaj Vinjo - 58 pages
  • Karlo - 33 pages
  • Ili Kaptas Elzan - 71 pages
  • Faktoj aŭ Fantazioj - 431 pages
  • Marvirinstrato - 207 pages
  • Ĉu vi kuiras ĉine? - 99 pages
  • Ĉu li bremsis sufiĉe? - 101 pages
  • Ĉu li venis trakosme? - 150 pages
  • Ĉu ni kunvenis vane? - 139 pages
  • Jaĥto veturas for - 191 pages
  • Kazinski venas tro malfrue - 176 pages
  • Nigra Magio - 215 pages
  • Urd Hadda murdita! - 196 pages
  • Robinson Kruso - 85 pages
  • La Mirinda Sorĉistro De Oz - 77 pages
  • La Bona Lingvo - 68 pages
  • Murdo En La Orienta Ekspreso - 147 pages
  • La Besto Farmo - 95 pages
  • La Nuda Feino - 111 pages
  • Vojaĝo al kuniĝo - 362 pages
  • Hetajro Dancas - 327 pages
  • La Hobito - 224 pages
  • Hari Potter kaj la Ŝtono de la Saĝuloj - 196 pages
  • Budhismaj Fabloj - 200 pages
  • Amo al La Vivo - 306 pages
  • Grafo De Monte Kristo Parto Unu - 592 pages
  • Grafo De Monte Kristo Parto Du - 592 pages
Last edited by chobbs on Sat Sep 05, 2015 12:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Esperanto: 3 / 30 (Books Read)
French: On Hold

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Brun Ugle
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Re: Esperanto Journey

Postby Brun Ugle » Sat Sep 05, 2015 5:54 am

Kie vi trovis la libron "Murdo En La Orienta Ekspreso?" Mi ŝatus legi ĝin.
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chobbs
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Re: Esperanto Journey

Postby chobbs » Sat Sep 05, 2015 12:05 pm

Vi povos trovi ligilon por "Murdo En La Orienta Ekspreso" ĉe http://www.eventoj.hu/ligoj.htm en la sekcio "Interesaj legaĵoj". Se vi interesiĝas, la romanoj de Claude Piron estas en la sama sekcio.

Ili ankaŭ havas 139 eldonojn de la gazeto "Juna Amiko" - http://www.eventoj.hu/juna-amiko/

Ĝuu!
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Esperanto: 3 / 30 (Books Read)
French: On Hold

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Re: Esperanto Journey

Postby rdearman » Sat Sep 05, 2015 1:06 pm

chobbs wrote:Below is a list of the books that I have available and will be working through. Some are printed books (green), others are epubs (blue), and some are only pdf (purple) files (which means I need to be in front of the computer to read them - unlike my epub files which I can pull onto my eReader).

Just a quick note for you about the PDF files. There is a program called Calibre which has a book converter program. It does a pretty good job of converting books into different electronic formats, so you could convert your PDF files into EPUB or other file format quickly and use on an e-reader, tablet or mobile phone.
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tarvos
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Re: Esperanto Journey

Postby tarvos » Sat Sep 05, 2015 1:17 pm

Mi esperas ke vi sukcese lernos paroli Esperanton. Mi lastatempe lernis paroli ĝin kaj mi pensas ke tio estas vere tre amuza.

Diru al mi kiam vi finos legi tiajn librojn - mi ŝatas scii ĉu la libroj estas amuzaj.
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chobbs
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Re: Esperanto Journey

Postby chobbs » Sat Sep 05, 2015 1:21 pm

rdearman wrote:Just a quick note for you about the PDF files. There is a program called Calibre which has a book converter program. It does a pretty good job of converting books into different electronic formats, so you could convert your PDF files into EPUB or other file format quickly and use on an e-reader, tablet or mobile phone.

Thanks for the reminder. I haven't had much luck with the conversions from Calibre on pdf files though. It does an okay job with large blocks of text, but any funny fonts (for example a large letter to start the Chapter) and things get thrown off. I might give it a whirl with these, but I know I had a bunch of trouble with converting some French pdfs when I first installed it.
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Esperanto: 3 / 30 (Books Read)
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chobbs
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Re: Esperanto Journey

Postby chobbs » Sat Sep 05, 2015 1:36 pm

tarvos wrote:Mi esperas ke vi sukcese lernos paroli Esperanton. Mi lastatempe lernis paroli ĝin kaj mi pensas ke tio estas vere tre amuza.

Diru al mi kiam vi finos legi tiajn librojn - mi ŝatas scii ĉu la libroj estas amuzaj.

Dankon! Mi skribos iom post ĉiu estas fininta. Mi esperas, ke la malgranda resumo aŭ malmultaj pensoj helpos aliajn.
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Esperanto: 3 / 30 (Books Read)
French: On Hold

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chobbs
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Re: Esperanto Journey

Postby chobbs » Sun Sep 06, 2015 5:14 pm

Finished "La Aventuroj De Alicio En Mirlando". Since this is one of the few books where I had both English and Audio, in addition to the Esperanto text, I made a few passes through each chapter in a variety of ways. I could probably get more out of the content, but am starting to get bored with it and ready to move on. I may return to it later on, but for now I am going to table it and keep moving forward with my other books.

I was surprised I had never read the book in English before now, but after reading it I guess I shouldn't be. It doesn't really fit my usual reading choices, even amongst the "classics". I found the book immensely strange, even in English, and was surprised to see so much craziness wasn't just Disney "enhancing" a story. However, the translation is very well done and despite the strangeness of the story it wasn't too difficult - except the poetry sections! Although, if I didn't have that audio and English available, I probably wouldn't have tried to tackle it so soon in my reading queue.
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Esperanto: 3 / 30 (Books Read)
French: On Hold

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tarvos
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Re: Esperanto Journey

Postby tarvos » Sun Sep 06, 2015 7:14 pm

Mi vere amas "La aventuroj De Alicio en Mirlando". Mi pensas ke estas la plej bona libro en la mondo por infanoj, kaj ankaŭ kiel plenkreskulo mi ŝatas tion multe. Mi scias ke la libro este iomete stranga sed mi vere ŝatas tion. Libroj devas esti strangaj. Kaj la pensoj estas multege amuzaj!
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chobbs
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Re: Esperanto Journey

Postby chobbs » Sun Sep 06, 2015 8:29 pm

tarvos wrote:Mi vere amas "La aventuroj De Alicio en Mirlando". Mi pensas ke estas la plej bona libro en la mondo por infanoj, kaj ankaŭ kiel plenkreskulo mi ŝatas tion multe. Mi scias ke la libro este iomete stranga sed mi vere ŝatas tion. Libroj devas esti strangaj. Kaj la pensoj estas multege amuzaj!

Mia edzino legis la anglan eldonon al nia infanoj kaj ili tute ĝuis ĝin. Tamen, mi multe preferas librojn kiel "La Grafo de Monte Kristo". Ĝi estas mia plej ŝatata romano iam ajn. Do, mi legos ĝin ĉe la fino de la vico, kiam mi multe pli komprenos kaj ĝuos ĝin. Mi ankaŭ ŝatus trovi traduko de "Crime and Punishment".
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