Research on esperanto as a language accelerator

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Re: Research on esperanto as a language accelerator

Postby Cainntear » Mon Sep 28, 2020 10:02 am

Deinonysus wrote:Esperanto's propaedeudic value needs to be studied more.

Strangely, I only ever hear that word used by Esperantists... ;-)
However, I think any further research on this needs to be comparative. We know learning Esperanto makes it easier to learn another language. We know learning any language makes learning subsequent languages easier. The only question that leaves is whether Esperanto is measurably better than natural languages at preparing for later language learning.

I think it's tremendously valuable for any speaker of a Western European language (particularly English, Spanish, and French) who wants to learn how to learn foreign languages, and any speaker of other languages who wants an easy introduction to Western European languages.

Except that Esperanto can be misleading, setting up incorrect intuitions, particularly regarding suffixes.

If we did serious research into propaedeutic auxiliary teaching languages, the natural conclusion would be the invention of a completely new set of auxlangs that embody all the principles of language learning in the most efficient way, with the minimum possible traps to lead people away from natural language. We've learned a heck of a lot about how language works since Esperanto was written. Why a set? Because you wouldn't want to focus on e.g. conjugations to people who are going on to study isolating languages after. Implicit in what Deinonysus says above is the idea that the value of Esperanto as a first language diminishes rapidly the further you are from FIGS.

I consider Esperanto a bit like the programming language BASIC: a well-intentioned endeavour that was flawed from the outset and has been massively outdated by advances in technology since.
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Re: Research on esperanto as a language accelerator

Postby devilyoudont » Mon Sep 28, 2020 4:29 pm

Cainntear wrote:The only question that leaves is whether Esperanto is measurably better than natural languages at preparing for later language learning.

I believe the evidence on this is that Esperanto offers no benefit on the quality of the preparation, only on the speed of the of the preparation. I think it's doubtful that any natural language is faster to learn than Esperanto, which can be learned to intermediate in 5 months even by a monolingual Chinese native speaker (basically a worst case scenario in terms of phonology, shared vocabulary, and grammar). I personally wonder if this effect exists for minimalist conlangs (eg Toki Pona), which can be learned even faster than Esperanto. Or does the limited expressive potential of those languages dampen this effect?

I am not sure if the intuition aspect matters at all. I think that the third language is faster than the second because you have learned how you learn a language. Clearly learning closely related languages, the pedagogic effect will be stronger... Yet it seems to me that this pedagogic effect still exists even if your second and third language are completely unrelated.
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Re: Research on esperanto as a language accelerator

Postby Serpent » Wed Sep 30, 2020 11:03 am

Cainntear wrote:
Deinonysus wrote:Esperanto's propaedeudic value needs to be studied more.

Strangely, I only ever hear that word used by Esperantists... ;-)
How would you put it more naturally as a native speaker of English? I wouldn't be surprised if the term has been popularized by non-natives.
devilyoudont wrote:I think it's doubtful that any natural language is faster to learn than Esperanto, which can be learned to intermediate in 5 months even by a monolingual Chinese native speaker (basically a worst case scenario in terms of phonology, shared vocabulary, and grammar). I personally wonder if this effect exists for minimalist conlangs (eg Toki Pona), which can be learned even faster than Esperanto. Or does the limited expressive potential of those languages dampen this effect?
We need to distinguish between declarative learning, ie explicitly learning the rules and the vocab, and actually developing "fluency" in the language ie being able to use it, think in it etc. There are definitely conlangs where you can learn the whole "manual" faster than in Esperanto, but this doesn't mean you'll instantly be able to speak it. Same goes for Esperanto, of course, you also need to practise skills like reading, speaking, etc.

I first started to learn Esperanto when I wanted to do a 6 week challenge (at the time you had to start a new language and the goal of the challenge was to compare the different methods). My main goal was definitely to improve my language-learning skills/capacity. At the time I was "fluent" in English and Finnish, and had experience with German, Latin and Yiddish (and, more informally, other languages including Belarusian, Polish, Estonian, Italian). I admired Prof. Argüelles who had said you become a better learner with four languages under your belt.

This was in summer 2007. That autumn I had to take Latin from scratch at university (with a strict teacher). I also gave Belarusian another try. About half a year later I started Portuguese, taking a class for a couple of months and then on my own. Honestly, it did feel different, but I don't think Esperanto alone was responsible for that. I would remember German words when trying to come up with Portuguese ones, for example.

Perhaps in some ways Esperanto did make the modern Romance languages less intimidating for me, with words like pensi and the days of the week. By all means, if you want to give Esperanto a try, do it. Especially if there's a community in your neighbourhood - like, somewhere you can "easily" go to. There's a community here in Moscow for example, but I've only met its members at Language festivals (lingva festivalo). I'm sure they meet up somewhere in the center, but I never bothered to join them. If you're an introvert like me, be realistic about your level of enthusiasm ;)

Of course there's nothing wrong with just reading in Esperanto or listening to podcasts or whatever works for you. But the biggest hurdles I faced were having to learn the established way to say things (with affixes), and a lack of content I truly care about.

For "learning to think differently", if you're not monolingual, toki pona works better than Esperanto. I think Esperanto's biggest strength is convincing people who've taken French/Spanish/Latin at school that they can actually learn a language.
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Re: Research on esperanto as a language accelerator

Postby Andreo » Mon Mar 06, 2023 6:17 pm

When I was in school I had big problems learning Spanish even though my Romanian mother tongue should have helped me with that. Well it didn't. I was able to see the resemblance in lots of words, but the grammar and speaking were out of my comprehension, until I found an introductory book to Esperanto and familiarized myself with the language.

I remember me having almost a state of revelation and linguistic euphoria. The book allowed me to learn it at the beginner level. I didn't have any possibilities to use it with others and the local libraries and bookstores did not have any Esperanto offers, so I didn't progress and after some time forgot about it.

My biggest surprise was that my Spanish learning improved dramatically after this introduction course in Esperanto and I was getting better at grammar and were trying to speak more and more. I got even better marks in my mother tongue classes. By the graduation I was already a second winner in Spanish regional contest.

From foreign language hater I became a foreign language lover and all thanks to Esperanto. I ended up learning 10+ languages at different levels. I had for a very long period of time (years and years) neglected most of my languages and now I discovered that I can actively use mainly the regular and logical features of the learned languages, so only Esperanto and my native languages remained unaffected.

Recently I decided to rekindle my interest in Esperanto and I was very much surprised when after 35 years of neglect I was able to read Don Quijote in Esperanto with almost no use of dictionary and the language felt almost native. I don't think this is possible in any other language.
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Re: Research on esperanto as a language accelerator

Postby Andreo » Mon Mar 06, 2023 7:13 pm

In fact, Esperanto is suited very well to prepare kids for the tougher "natural" languages. There is a lot of scientific evidence of it. It is like the kids getting a brand new set of LEGO (Esperanto) where all the pieces perfectly fit together, are almost self-explanatory with literally a page of very simple instructions so the kids can easily start playing building everything they want, fantasy and the number of the pieces is the limit and with very little intervention from the teachers.

On the other hand, the kids that have to learn English, French, etc. is like providing them with a collection of LEGO-like pieces from different times and producers that don't exactly fit together and are inconsistently color-coded and shaped. There is a ginormous set of very complicated instructions with this particular collection, so kids get overwhelmed, clueless and frozen. There is no way for the poor kids to build anything useful and stable without the total guidance of the teacher that again and again has to remind them how to play "correctly" with most of the pieces. Where is the fun in this for a kid?

Please, think about the poor kids and don't subject them to such tortures! At least prepare them first! The kids that had the chance to play with the new LEGO (Esperanto) that is somewhat similarly color-coded and shaped are better at figuring out the mess of the older game and are more dairing without the constant teacher intervention and even manage to have some fun.
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Re: Research on esperanto as a language accelerator

Postby rdearman » Mon Mar 06, 2023 9:20 pm

Andreo wrote:There is a lot of scientific evidence of it.

Do you have any links to those studies?
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Re: Research on esperanto as a language accelerator

Postby Iversen » Mon Mar 06, 2023 9:57 pm

I once participated in a congress (maybe Galway, I'm not sure) where someone told about some experiments in (as far as I remember) Croatia that proved that you would win back the time you invested in learning Esperanto before something like English because it would go so much faster to learn the second language. However I have searched in vain for a reference to that lecture and to the research it told about. So until my faded memories return I would just mention that there is a whole page on the Esperanto Wikipedia named "Propedeŭtika valoro de Esperanto", and at the end of that page there are some references to literature about the subject - including some in English, Geman and Italian.

The problem is that even if you could prove convincingly that Esperanto could be used as a language learning accelerator functioned nobody outside the world of Esperantists would believe you, and few parents would stake the future of their kids on the idea that Esperanto could help them - and school teachers in particular would continue to teach their languages as they always have done rather than learning a new language. And they would write articles claiming that the effect didn't exist.
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Re: Research on esperanto as a language accelerator

Postby Le Baron » Mon Mar 06, 2023 10:15 pm

When it was more hip in the late '60s and '70s it led to several studies. There was one done (and I actually think more since, I have one of the resulting reports and will try to find it), in the UK over an entire year where two groups prior to reaching the age when schoolkids usually start learning French, were taught Esperanto. Two things emerged: firstly, that the kids very quickly started communicating and very quickly learned the agglutinative word creation possibilities. I'll leave that aside though, because it's a different question which people like to critique. Those who learned Esperanto were in a far better receptive position for learning French.

Even I would ask questions about this. Since Esperanto and French have very close similarities in vocabulary and some syntax and grammar. I noticed this years ago when I found a pamphlet-like book in French teaching Esperanto. Same story for Spanish I would say. Yet whether it would prepare a student to be more receptive to e.g. German, I don't know. There are two ways of looking at it. Is it that it just gives an easier introduction to similar structures as found in French/Spanish... or that it teaches the structure of language and how it works when learning a 2nd language?

In my opinion, both are beneficial anyway.
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Re: Research on esperanto as a language accelerator

Postby rdearman » Mon Mar 06, 2023 10:28 pm

Would have been a better study if they had more than just the control group and the Esperanto group. They should have taught another group Spanish and a fourth group one of those nonsense languages the DOD give potential DLI students. Then teach all four groups french and see who did better.
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Re: Research on esperanto as a language accelerator

Postby Le Baron » Mon Mar 06, 2023 10:35 pm

rdearman wrote:Would have been a better study if they had more than just the control group and the Esperanto group. They should have taught another group Spanish and a fourth group one of those nonsense languages the DOD give potential DLI students. Then teach all four groups french and see who did better.

They taught a third group basic French. However I'm not really up for all this because it's like Esperanto has to somehow prove its usefulness to gain acceptance. Not that I'm against the studies if they want to do them or if anything comes from it good or bad.

It's not like there are mass studies going on to see if people learning English the world over are then better primed for acquiring more languages. Indeed this is just 'assumed' for almost any language...except Dr. Z's language.
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