Why isn't the easiest foreign language to learn, Esperanto, taught to home schooled children?

Question

Go to esperanto-usa.org for a FREE 10-lesson email course.

My personal opinion - and it's borne out by the answers posted here - is that most people are unaware of the advantages of teaching Esperanto as the first foreign language.

The simple grammar - only 16 rules - and lack of masculine and feminine nouns as well as the presence of grammar-coded words make it simple to learn and once the concepts are learned other languages are much easier to learn.

There is a very well organized program "Infanoj Chirkau La Mondo" (Childen Around the World) for children 12-14 years of age. They can exchange post cards with childen the same age in other countries.

Home schoolers that DO teach their children learn it along WITH their children.

Millions of people in over 120 countries speak Esperanto, which has been around since 1887. You do need the "jarlibro" (yearbook) when you travel and must contact Esperantists in the countries you plan to visit in advance. You must write IN Esperanto, of course.

Vilchjo
[e-mail]

Answer 1

What an excellent question! I am home schooling my children, and learning Esperanto along with them. We, are using the free 10 lesson written course. As I see it, one of the many advantages of home schooling is that we don't have to go through miles of red tape in order to teach/learn a new subject. I think people are just not aware of Esperanto, as many of the answers here demonstrate. A few days ago. I was handing out free Esperanto information at a local fair. There was a lot of interest from quite a variety of people, including home schoolers.

Answer 2

At present is taught in some schools and universities (Bulgaria, China, Mexico, Ukrania, etc.)

"Relatively few schools teach Esperanto officially outside of China, Hungary, and Bulgaria; the majority of Esperanto speakers continue to learn the language through self-directed study or correspondence courses. Several Esperanto paper correspondence courses were early on adapted to e-mail and taught by corps of volunteer instructors. In more recent years, teaching websites like lernu! have become popular. Various educators have estimated that Esperanto can be learned in anywhere from one quarter to one twentieth the amount of time required for other languages."

Answer 3

... or many other children?

Consider: could you ever travel to a foreign country telling yourself, "I'll be OK. They speak Esperanto over there."?

Besides, Esperanto is an unbelievably ugly chimera of existing languages that could seriously damage your finer sensibilities, if you ask me. It has the composition of a language created by committee following the motto: "Let's put something in from everybody (who is member of an elitist Eurocentric club) to make all the members happy, no matter if it fits into the whole, makes for the greatest ease, or respects linguistic origins." I know enough about many of its source languages that when I took a look at Esperanto I was quite underwhelmed.

Answer 4

Esperanto is not taught because it is not one of the established world languages, like French, or Spanish, and Esperanto is not, as far as I know, a primary language for anyone. Language is often tied with a country or countries, and with a culture. Esperanto, as a recently created language, doesn't have ties to a country or culture- that makes it less practical.

P.S. - you can learn Esperanto almost anywhere- just google it, there's plenty of guides, and most are free.

Answer 5

Esperanto is no longer in vogue and is not a world standard. Thus if it is taught to children, they will have few places to use it.

I agree with your basic point, that it is a good idea to teach children a language early. Not only do they acquire a language, but they also get English vocabulary skills [if they learn a Romance language] and understand word derivations more. However, I would suggest that a current world language be taught, like Spanish or Mandarin.

Answer 6

Because learning Esperanto isn't of much use. The time is better spent learning Spanish or some other actual foreign language.

Best wishes and God bless.

Answer 7

Probably more useful to speak a language that someone actually can use, instead of learning one because it's easy.

I'm sure homeschooled children could learn Klingon, too, but it won't really help them much in the real world.

Stick with real languages that real people speak.

Answer 8

Because no one speaks it. What's the point of learning a language that no one speaks and has no use? At least Latin has use in modern language.

Answer 9

Are you spamming?